Efficacy of speech and language therapy for particular speech sounds in children.

At the present time there is a demand for research into the efficacy of speech and language therapy. This study aims to assess the efficacy of therapy provided in South Tees for children who do not use word-initial velar plosives. The study is in progress at the time of writing and it is expected that therapy will be completed by July 1998. Subjects are split randomly into an 'immediate treatment' and a 'deferred treatment' group. All subjects are reassessed after treatment of each group. It is of course possible that analysis of the results will not show a significant difference between pre- and post-treatment scores. Some children may acquire target sounds before entering therapy, whilst others may fail to learn them within the treatment period. Various factors are being noted to determine whether they appear to correlate with the outcome of therapy.