Are your minimal pairs too neat? The dangers of ‘phonemicization’ in phonology therapy

Abstract

ABSTRACT To ‘phonemicize’ (Howard, 1993) involves tidying up the phonetic details of a child's utterances in order to fit the tokens into neat phonemic categories which provide clear meaningful contrasts for a therapy programme. Research has highlighted the dangers inherent in such treatment of the child's phonological output. One danger of this approach is that, as therapists, we can overlook vital information regarding the child's true system of contrasts as we only consider the perspective of the listener rather than the speaker. This can have a negative effect on the efficacy of therapy undertaken. The solution to this is accurate, detailed phonetic transcription and analysis of the child's output (Grunwell, 1987). This paper presents evidence of how such ‘phonemicization’ can work against the aims of a therapy programme when the minimal pairs being used, supposedly to contrast the child error with the target version, are not an accurate reflection of the actual child output. The evidence comes from detailed qualitative analysis of filmed interaction between therapists and phonologically disordered children working together. The techniques are those of conversation analysis (CA) as derived from the work of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974), and Atkinson and Heritage (1984). This evidence is presented in the form of extracts which show the therapist responding to child error on a target phone by ‘redoing’ (Tarplee, 1989) the child's version inaccurately, but in a way that fits in with therapy design. The child routinely fails to repair the error in such cases. Where the redoing reflects the child's output more accurately than appropriate repair can be shown to take place. CA shows that the way we plan and implement therapy, based upon a theoretical notion, becomes explicit through the clinical interaction. Careful phonetic assessment should lead to a therapy programme that more accurately reflects the child's difficulties and to more appropriately handled repair sequences that help the child address his error effectively. This, in turn, should enhance the therapy process.