According to American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, up to 8% of children exhibit a communication disorder. In the field of speech-language pathology, there is no gold standard used to treat communication disorders specific to a speech sound disorder. Continued research efforts are needed to analyze which treatments will most effectively remediate speech sound disorders (SSDs). According to ASHA’s National Outcomes Measurement System (NOMS), 17 hours is the average time reported to target and successfully improve a single sound error. Dosage and frequency are an essential component in the outcome measures of school-based therapy and treatment plans. Van Riper established the traditional therapy approach to articulation that focused on the child being able to demonstrate an increased frequency of the correct production of the sound in error in increasingly sophisticated contexts. The traditional approach is the most commonly used in the school setting, with 47% of SLPs treating preschool children between ages three and six in public school settings using the traditional articulation therapy approach to target SSDs. This investigation evaluated the effects of dosage when using a traditional approach to improve outcomes for children with SSDs aged 6:0 to 8:0 years. This investigation examined the effect of short, frequent therapy sessions using a traditional articulation therapy approach compared to longer therapy sessions, on SSDs.
