The purpose of this investigation was to explore the effects of tactile facial cues used within traditional phonetic articulation therapy approach for preschool aged children with moderate to severe speech sound (articulation) impairment. Previous research using motor based approaches utilizing tactile facial cues for articulation therapy has shown a positive effect on speech sound acquisition and generalization. The majority of these studies included children with significant articulation impairments including children with childhood apraxia of speech and cerebral palsy and targeted sounds in words and phrases. Studies utilizing tactile facial cues are also limited to a few specific programs and not integrated into a traditional phonetic articulation therapy approach used by many speech-language pathologists. There were three participants included in this multiple baseline across behavior study. Each participant received traditional phonetic articulation therapy approach during the baseline sessions. In the intervention phase, tactile facial cues were used when a target was in error. The overall results were mixed. Only two of the participants received tactile facial cues as the third participant reached criterion for all three targets in the baseline phase. Only a total of three out of nine targets reached the intervention phase, however, all three targets for all three participants did reach criterion. Targets improving in the baseline phase indicate the efficacy of a traditional phonetic articulation therapy approach in remediating articulation errors while improvements in the intervention phase indicate a possible benefit in using tactile facial cues when a target does not respond to a traditional phonetic articulation therapy approach alone.
