Untrained Contexts Research Articles

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.

A procedure for testing position generalization from articulation training.

Generalization was repeatedly tested in individual children during an articulation training program which progressed in phases from isolated sound training to medial position training using nonsense syllables and, if necessary, words. Four children who misarticulated the /s/ in initial, final, and medial positions in words comprised the population of the study. If complete generalization on 12 test probes had not occurred after 3 phases of nonsense syllable training, 3 additional phases (initial, final, and medial position) of word training were administered. Training was terminated when (1) complete generalization had occurred or (2) all phases of the program had been administered. Two children generalized completely at the end of nonsense syllable training, one child generalized after nonsense syllable training, word training, and instructions, and the fourth child did not generalize completely by the end of the study. Although the correctly articulated /s/ began to control the children’s responses in untrained contexts, the results showed that position generalization was not a function of the position trained. As the children progressed through the program, generalization increased, but sometimes failed to stabilize on specific items from phase to phase.