A Randomized Trial of 12-Week Interventions for the Treatment of Developmental Phonological Disorder in Francophone Children.

PURPOSE: This study was designed to test the relative efficacy of different combinations of intervention approaches when targeting speech production accuracy and phonological awareness skills. All children received individual speech therapy, a home program, and a small-group phonological awareness intervention.

METHOD: Sixty-five 4-year-olds with a developmental phonological disorder received these intervention components in different combinations over 12 weeks, resulting in 4 groups: output-oriented individual intervention and articulation practice home program, output-oriented individual intervention and dialogic reading home program, input-oriented individual intervention and articulation practice home program, and input-oriented individual intervention and dialogic reading home program.

RESULTS

A significant interaction of the individual treatment condition and the home program condition was observed for 2 outcome measures: targeted feature match (which reflected changes in speech production accuracy for features and word shape structures that were targeted in therapy) and explicit phonological awareness skills.

CONCLUSION

In this context, in which the children received a brief period of direct therapy and a home program component provided sequentially, the most effective strategy was to teach the parents to use treatment procedures at home that were congruent with the direct therapy component.