The effects of phonological and metaphonological intervention on the metaphonological skills of children with phonological disorders

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between the phonological and metaphonological skills of nineteen 3- to 5-year-old children with moderately severe to severe phonological disorders, and to observe the effects of two types of intervention on the children awareness skills. Seven metaphonological tasks were used which required children to recite nursery rhymes, to produce alliterations and rhymes, to segment disyllabic and monosyllabic words, and to change the names of objects. Children's metaphonological skills were tested (a) before intervention (b) following phonological intervention, and (c) following metaphonological plus phonological intervention. The results suggested that children's metaphonological abilities were related to their phonological and morphosyntactic production skills. Intervention outcomes indicated that both types of intervention may result in a significant increase in children's metaphonological task performance. It was further observed that children with more moderate phonological disorders and good morphosyntactic production skills tended to improve on the metaphonological tasks following phonological intervention alone. Children with more severe phonological and morphosyntactic disorders tended to increase their task performance only following phonological plus metaphonological intervention.Medicine, Faculty ofAudiology and Speech Sciences, School ofGraduat