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English Language Learners (ELLs) are a population at risk for lower literacy skills and are at an even greater risk when they are from low socioeconomic status (SES) households. Research suggests that the speech perception of Spanish speaking ELLs is immature when it comes to English only vowels sounds, which may be a factor contributing to lower literacy skills. Three participants, ages 4;0-4;11 from a Headstart preschool program who are ELLs from bilingual Spanish-speaking low socioeconomic households, took part in this study. A screener was utilized to identify the children that do not perceive the non-native English vowel target /æ/. The participants were seen together in a group as they would be seen in a Tier 2 RTI setting. The intervention continued for ten sessions. Intervention sessions were comprised of three tasks; (1) actively listening to non-native /æ/ stimuli, (2) actively listening to /æ/ and its minimal contrast /ɒ/ immediately following to attempt to discriminate between the two stimuli, and (3) actively listening to combinations of the two sounds and determine if the sounds are the same or different. All three participants showed increased speech perception of the nonnative English vowel phoneme /æ/ after receiving an intervention of minimal contrast therapy.
