Analysis of Treatment Dose for Treatment of Speech Sound Disorder

Treatment dose for speech sound disorders (SSD) has not been thoroughly investigated. This information is critical to treatment planning for speech-language pathologists. The purpose of the present study was to examine the cumulative treatment dose required for children with SSD to reach 25%, 50%, and 75% accuracy on their treatment sound during a single session. The present study is a retrospective analysis of treatment data gathered in a previous study of two age groups of children – one group between the ages of 4 and 5 and the other between the ages of 7 and 8. This data is a count of each participant’s correct and incorrect productions of their target sound over the course of each treatment session. The results show that there is no significant difference between the mean dose required for both groups of children to achieve 25%, 50%, and 75% accuracy; dose varied greatly between participants. Both age groups require a relatively similar treatment dose to achieve accuracy on their respective treatment sounds.