Cycles Approach
Minimal Pairs
Minimal Pairs approach is a phonological approach with an overall goal of increasing a child's intelligibility. The clinician can target more than one phoneme within a pattern at a time, and generalization to other phonemes may occur. The clinician should target speech sounds in isolation first, then move to non words, real words, sentences and conversation. Required components include a spoken response, auditory listening, knowledge of performance and self-monitoring.
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Optional components include imitation, phonological awareness, phonetic production and knowledge of results. A speech language pathologist is required to implement this approach, but a parent or teacher may also be included. Resources that can be used in each session include tactile objects, games, activities, etc. The clinician can make sessions structured or naturalistic dependent on the client.
Settings can vary for this approach and can include clinics, schools, hospitals, at home (for carry over), etc. Session frequency is recommended to be 2X/week, for about 30 minutes per session. It is also suggested to target about 50 trials per session. Total intervention dosage is recommended to be at least 30 sessions, or about 15 weeks. It is also important to note picture card are commonly used to help the client distinguish differences between the minimal pairs.
Resources:
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Barlow, J. A., & Gierut, J. A. (2002). Minimal pair approaches to phonological remediation. In Seminars in speech and language, 23(1), 57-68.
Cooper, R. (1968). The method of meaningful minimal contrasts in functional articulation problems. J Speech Hear Assoc Va, 10, 17-22.
Crosbie, S., Holm, A., & Dodd, B. (2005). Intervention for children with severe speech disorder: a comparison of two approaches. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 40(4), 467-491.