The purpose of this investigation was to compare the effects of traditional speech therapy with Tucker signs to traditional speech therapy alone on the accuracy of speech production of a five-year old child with a mild to moderate phonological delay. In the literature, phonological delays and disorders are intermingled, making it difficult to determine the most effective intervention. Visual and tactile cueing have been shown to be effective in treating moderate to severe phonological impairments. An alternating treatments design was used to determine if adding multimodality cueing to phonemic perceptual training and sensory motor therapy results in greater improvements in accuracy of speech production than traditional therapy alone. Results indicated the use of Tucker signs was more effective than traditional therapy alone in remediating a mild to moderate phonological delay, without motor deficits. Accuracy of /l/ increased by an average of three words per session following traditional therapy including Tucker signs, as opposed to an average increase of two words per session following traditional therapy without Tucker signs. Percent consonants correct (PCC) increased from 72% preinterventions to 79% post interventions. Results were encouraging but limited to one participant. Results suggest that the use of Tucker signs during speech therapy may improve accuracy of speech production and intelligibility and decrease duration of time enrolled in speech therapy. Remediating phonological delays may also minimize academic and social impact.
Keywords: phonological delay, speech therapy, visual kinesthetic cues, Tucker signs
