Purpose: This investigation aimed to determine the effects of integral stimulation on articulatory accuracy in children with a severe phonological disorder. While there are many treatment approaches for phonological disorders, research on motor-based treatment approaches for this linguistically based speech sound disorder is limited. This study aimed to add to the available evidence to support the claim that phonological disorders may have motoric underpinnings, and that a motor-based approach may be another option for treatment. Method: Three participants ages 4;0 to 5;6 years of age were recruited for this multiple baseline across participants investigation. All participants were diagnosed with severe phonological disorders. The participants received five to nine treatment sessions targeting three treatment words with one target phoneme per word. The researcher used a modified practice block schedule and fading cueing hierarchy. The dependent variable was the percentage of consonants correct in targeted phonemes of words (PCCtp). Results: Using the two standard deviation band method, all three participants made improvements from baseline. All three participants made improvements on the secondary dependent variables as well. Conclusion: This investigation adds to the literature in demonstrating phonological disorders may have a motoric underpinning. Further, this investigation provided additional evidence that a motor-based treatment approach may be an option for treating phonological disorders.
