Seeing phonological disorders more clearly:

Understanding the impact of phonological awareness
intervention on the speech sound system of children with
consistent phonological disorder.

The incidence of Speech Sound Disorder in children is
approximately 7%, of whom over 20% will have Consistent
Phonological Disorder (CPD). Typically they receive
Phonological Awareness (PA) intervention to improve their PA
skills and resolve some of their speech sound production
errors. However, children with CPD make varying amounts of
progress following PA intervention, some are completely
intelligible and others still require intervention to specifically
target their CPD. The primary aim of this project is to discover
if there are identifiable subgroups of children with CPD who
respond differently to PA intervention in terms of its impact on
their expressive phonology.
Firstly, a systematic review of literature will be completed to
assess existing evidence for PA approaches for Early Years
Foundation Stage children with SSD Secondly, a quasiexperimental
experimental group study will evaluate the
impact of PA intervention on speech sound systems of
children with CPD. Up to 50 children with CPD aged 3;00 to
5;11 will be recruited and assessed on measures of PA,
speech sound production and receptive and expressive
language at three stages: pre-intervention, following
intervention, and after a consolidation period. All participants
will receive the Newcastle Intervention for Phonological
Awareness (NIPA) (Stringer, 2019), a well-evidenced and
widely used PA intervention.
Changes in speech sound errors over the three assessment
phases will be statistically analysed in relation to the research
questions and subgroups of children with CPD identified.
Results from this project will inform SLT practice, so that PA
intervention can be more effectively targeted.