Should Clinicians Use Developmental Norms

Treatment targets allow clinicians to successfully create a plan of action for the client. The first treatment target is developmental norms are based on normative data gathered from speech development research studies. Clinicians use developmental norms the most due to the clinically wise decision of treating the child to what is appropriate for his/her age. A clinician may use developmental norms because the norms of the research serves as a representation of where the child falls in and can ultimately be useful in the school setting or for insurance requirements. Although developmental norms can serve as a guideline, they should not be the only resources used. Developmental norms represent a sample population and cannot observe the individuals’ skill set. The second treatment target is stimulability can be described as a treatment target in which the sounds that are produced incorrectly can be produced correctly when there is another stimulus along with it. Another recommendation for the target of stimulability is that the targets that are more stimulable should be treated faster than those that are not stimulable. An important recommendation based on research indicates that the treatment of phonological errors is that an error should be treated when it happens 40% of the time. …show more content…
Generalization groups similar sounds together. For example, a child is receiving treatment for the production errors of fricatives more specifically the ‘f’ sound. Although the ‘f’ is the sound targeted sound for intervention, the child could properly produce the ‘v’ sound among other fricatives because of the generalization of the therapy for the error produced. In summary, generalization is the correct production of sounds that are not targeted for treatment, but are produced correctly due to the behaviors that come from the error sounds that are being