Phonological intervention in Greek-speaking preschoolers with speech sound disorders: Implementing phonological similarity and density.

PURPOSE: The study examined speech gains in three bilectal Cypriot-Greek speaking children with speech sound disorders. The study is based on theoretical frameworks that are on par with word-level characteristics and is motivated by the sparsity of cross-language studies in speech sound disorder intervention.

METHOD: A multiple-baseline, single-participant design was implemented across three participants with speech sound disorders aged 3;2-4;0 years across baseline (pre-test), intervention, post-test, and follow-up phases. Intervention was administered twice a week for two months. Treatment stimuli were selected based on phonological density and phonological similarity grouped in word clusters. Outcomes were measured using a 49-word pictorial production probe list. Maintenance gains were examined with 20 non-treated stimuli during a follow-up session. Dependent variables included phonetic inventory size, proportion of consonants correct, and percentage of whole word matches. Intelligibility was measured via the Intelligibility in Context Scale.

RESULT: Phonological gains were observed across all measures with effect sizes ranging from 1.2 to 2.7.

CONCLUSION

Implementing phonologically dense stimuli may facilitate speech outcomes in children with speech sound disorders cross-linguistically.