Articulation Generalization During Articulation Training

Four children who misarticulated the /s/ phoneme were administered an articulation training programme which trained the child to emit the correct /s/ in isolation and in the initial, final and medial positions in nonsense syllables. Transfer of the correct /s/ was tested throughout training to determine if generalization of the trained response to untrained contexts assumes an orderly pattern of progress. Indications from the test probes were that (1) transfer of the correct articulation to untrained contexts begins when the /s/ is trained in the context of other phonemes, (2) that transfer increases rapidly when children are required to monitor the accuracy of their own articulation and (3) that generalization is influenced by shifting the position of the correct articulation within the context of the training item. Reasons for the lack of an orderly pattern of generalization acquisition are presented.