Purpose: Speech sound production intervention in early childhood is relatively rare despite empirical and theoretical support for providing this type of targeted therapy for toddlers. Challenges perpetuate the present clinical condition including those related to treatment decision making (e.g., intervention approach). Method: Although there are…

Purpose: Children with speech sound disorders have more difficulties producing speech sounds accurately than same-age peers. In addition, they often have difficulties with speech perception, and weaker phonological awareness skills than their peers and are at risk for negative long-term academic and socio-emotional outcomes. In this tutorial, we…

Purpose: This tutorial summarizes current best practices in treating American English /r/ distortions in children with residual speech errors. Method: To enhance the effectiveness of clinicians' cueing and feedback, the phonetics of /r/ production is reviewed. Principles of acquisition, which can inform how to practice /r/ in the early stages of…

Purpose: Families and professionals often consider augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) a "last resort" for persons with communication challenges; however, speaking autistic adults have reported that they would have benefited from access to AAC as children. This tutorial discusses the history of this "last resort"…

One of a series of letters to parents of children with developmental apraxia of speech (DAS), this letter discusses issues and current thinking about the nature and causes of the disorder. These include the idea that DAS is a disorder of overall language development or that DAS is a problem of the "motor-programming" system for speech.…

One of a series of letters to parents of children with developmental apraxia of speech, this letter discusses other problems associated with the disorder including language development problems, academic problems, motor skill problems, and chewing and swallowing difficulties. An annotated bibliography of two further readings for parents is…

One of a series of letters to parents of children with developmental apraxia of speech, this letter discusses the characteristics of the disorder including having been a "quiet" baby, slow and late development of speech skills, problems sequencing sounds and syllables correctly, and problems in correct "voicing". An appended…

One of a series of letters to parents of children with developmental apraxia of speech (DAS), this letter discusses the treatment of DAS including linguistic approaches, motor-programming approaches, a combination of linguistic and motor-programming approaches, and treatment approaches that include specific sensory and gestural cueing techniques.…

In order to facilitate simultaneous use of verbal and gestural communication, a five-year-old Down's syndrome child was taught with the Promoting Aphasics' Communicative Effectivenes (PACE) technique. PACE provided a structured format to stimulate natural face to face conversation while providing for the use of multimodality communication. (SEW)

A survey of 182 educational programs for hearing-impaired children and youth identified those test instruments most widely used to assess language at infant, preschool, primary, and secondary levels. Also analyzed were communication modes and manual systems used in testing, difficulties encountered in assessing hearing-impaired children, and…

This paper describes a voice therapy program for adolescent vocal abusers that utilizes a varying signal-to-noise ratio to deal with varying environmental noises. The 10-session program teaches vocal abusers to maintain an appropriate fundamental frequency and vocal intensity in their speaking voice. (Author/JDD)