Generalization and articulation instruction.

Three young children were taught correct articulation of an error phoneme on a program administered by their mothers in their homes. During the course of the treatment program each child was periodically brought into the speech clinic where the generalization of correct articulation learned in the home treatment setting could be measured in a series of four settings which differed from the treatment setting in varying degrees. Stimulus words which had not been taught during the home articulation program were also included in generalization testing. The results indicated (1) that correct articulation generalized to a high extent to the nontreatment settings investigated; and (2) that responses to new stimulus words were less adequate than responses to words which had received previous training. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.