Auditory Discrimination: Evaluation and Intervention

Abstract

This chapter discusses the effectiveness of auditory discrimination training as a component of intervention with individuals who have functional misarticulations. An issue that confronts clinicians when working with persons who have defective articulation is whether or not auditory discrimination training is necessary for any given client. To identify those clients for whom auditory discrimination training will be effective, clinicians need to consider factors such as the client's phase of articulatory learning, his age, and the severity of his misarticulations. The chapter also presents the guidelines for evaluation and intervention programs that involve auditory discrimination testing. There are two major aspects of discrimination performance: (1) the ability to discriminate among acoustic differences in auditory stimuli and (2) the ability to discriminate among phonemes