The Effect of Real Words and Nonwords on Therapy Efficacy in Maximal Opposition Approach

Purpose: The success of the therapies of speech sound disorders is related with the chosen therapy method, the selection of speech stimulus, the frequency of the therapies or choice of materials. The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of real words and non-words on the success rate of therapies for speech sound disorders. Maximal opposition approach was used as a therapy method to compare the effectiveness of these speech stimuli. Method: In this study, the adapted alternating treatments model, which is one of the single subject research models, was used. The study was carried out with one child at the age of 4;4. She had speech sound disorders without any additional hearing, language or neurological problems. The target sound /l/ was studied with non-words while the sound /？/ was studied with real words. The comparison between real words and nonwords was done by obtaining the correct production percentage from probe lists prepared for these two target sounds (/l/ and /？/). Participants received therapy two times in a week. Each therapy session was divided into two parts and each of them lasted 20 minutes with 20 minutes’ breaks in between. It was planned to terminate therapies either when participants reached the success criterion of 80% accuracy in three consecutive sessions or after 20 therapy sessions. Results: At the end of the study, the criterion of producing the target sound with an accuracy rate of %80 at the three consecutive therapy sessions was not met for either of the sounds. However, for the /l/ sounds which was studied with non-words had better outcomes in comparison to sound /？/. Conclusion: Although the therapies with non-words were more effective than real words, further studies are necessary to generalize the findings of this study and to determine how individual differences affect therapies for speech sound disorders