Cycle Activities for Phonological Processes

Instead of correcting each sound when helping children learn how to speak properly, speech pathologists focus on phonological errors. Phonology is a discipline concerned with the sounds of language. The concept of cycles involves the pathologist modifying phonological processes in phases. Pathologists provide children with various activities designed to help them practice proper pronunciation during the cycles.

Continous Remediation

• The use of cycles and phonology is supported by the theory of gestural phonology, put forward by C Browman and L Goldstein. Gestural phonology holds that phonological representation is based not only on speech production constraints, but also on speech perception. Children have a hard time perceiving the spoken word and thus cannot figure out how to pronounce it. Pathologists use cycles primarily because children tend to oscillate in how they pronounce words. Therefore, the pathologist works with the child on specific forms of phonological remediation until the child pronounces words correctly in daily conversation.

Correcting Sounds

• When children incorrectly pronounce words, they can often point out that these pronunciations are incorrect when they hear someone else mispronounce them. However, when they make these same errors, they do not notice they are making the errors. Pathologists can gradually work with children to develop a greater awareness of how they are pronouncing words. Children must be actively involved in participating in the cycles instead of passively absorbing information. The speech language pathologist works with the child to practice pronouncing words.

Practicing Specific Phonemes

• Speech language pathologists try to focus on eliminating specific phonological pathologies instead of worrying about the correct pronunciation of words. As the child eliminates these speech errors, the pathologist moves on to other phonological errors. The speech pathologist challenges the children to engage in easy phonological remediation early on and then the pathologist gradually increases the difficulty of the remediation techniques to challenge the child. When the child successfully eliminates an error, the child is considered correct, because the pathologist is only focusing on correcting one problem at a time. Pathologists can have children practice saying words that differ only by one phoneme, such as cat and bat. Phonemes are the smallest segments of sound.

Using Pictures

• Children can name objects in pictures and practice correctly pronouncing the word associated with each picture. This allows children to connect sounds to images instead of connecting sounds to words only. For example, a child might connect the sound of the word cat to the C A and T. Pathologists want children to also connect the sound of the word "cat" to the animal.

Rhymes

• Pathologists can have children practice reciting rhymes. Rhymes help children understand the nuances of how words are pronounced. Rhymes can include tongue twisters like "She sells sea shells down by the seashore."

Segmentation

• The pathologist can take words and segment them. For example, when the child learns how to pronounce the word "coffee," the pathologist can break the word up into cof-fee and have the child practice pronouncing both parts of the word individually. This can help children understand how different syllables come together to form more complex words.