Remediating Unintelligible Utterances of a Child With a Mild Hearing Loss

An individualized phonological cycles remediation plan was designed and implemented for a highly unintelligible 4-year-old child with an unusual hearing loss. At the age of 6:3 (yrs:mos), the client was fit with hearing aids that were worn during remediation sessions and also during speech-practice periods at home. Phonological deviation percentage-of-occurrence scores decreased markedly during the 2-year period of phonological remediation, and the associated severity level changed from severe to mild. Phonological assessment percentage-of-occurrence scores and specific remediation target patterns and phonemes for each cycle are presented and discussed. Intelligibility measures are also provided for spontaneous connected speech samples recorded at the onset and at the time of dismissal from the phonology clinic.