Cycles Approach

You have a new client, Cleo, who is starting speech therapy today! Cleo is 3 year, 4 months old and presents with several phonological error patterns and reduced intelligibility. Based on her assessment, you have decided to implement the Cycles approach. Which of the following would be an appropriate pattern to target first?

• Final consonant deletion

• Voicing

• Stopping of fricatives

• Palatal fronting

You will begin with Final Consonant Deletion because it is a primary pattern that Cleo exhibits. You decided to begin with final /m/. Cleo just completed two 30-minute sessions, meaning she has finished the 60 minutes scheduled for this target. However, she still hasn't mastered this sound in conversation. What should you do?

• Keep working on final /m/ until she can use it with 80% accuracy at the sentence level.

• Focus on /m/ in the initial position instead.

• Move on to another final consonant, such as /s/.

• Switch to a different approach. The Cycles Approach clearly isn't working!

You've progressed through all final consonants selected based on Cloe's age and stimulability. It's time to choose a new pattern! Which of the following would NOT be an appropriate choice?

• gliding

• /s/ cluster reduction

• fronting

• stopping

You have decided to work on fronting. What will your next session look like?

• A mix of /k/ and /g/ in a variety of words and phrases

• Target /k/ in the initial position of simple, one syllable words.

• Target /g/ in the final position of simple, one syllable words.

• Target /t/ in the initial position of words.

Why wouldn't you target /g/ in the final position of words?

• /g/ never occurs in the final position of English words

• /g/ is a voiced stop. The Cycles Approach does not typically target voiced stops in the final position.

• Target phonemes should never be targeted in the final position.

• /g/ is too challenging

You've made it through an entire cycle! Cleo practiced all the selected sounds within all selected patterns. Now what?

• Discharge from therapy

• Begin again, using stimulability probes to choose appropriate targets with the same patterns.

• Switch treatment approaches

• Refer for a comprehensive speech sound evaluation

Hooray! Four new clients were just added to your caseload. Which of the following may be a good candidate for the Cycles approach?

• Bailey, age 7
  Sound errors: /l, ɹ/

• Matt, age 18 months
  Limited phonemic inventory
  Co-occurring language delay

• Julie, age 4
  Phonological pattern: fronting

• Molly, age 4
  Phonological patterns:
  fronting, stridency deletion, stopping, cluster reduction, gliding, final consonant deletion