The Effects of Applied Multisensory Treatment on Phonological Process of Reading Pronunciation for the Middle School Students with Mental Retardation

Kim, Soo-Jin; Lee, Ji-Young

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2008;13(1): 26-43.

Soo-Jin Kim^` , and Ji-Young Lee^`

김수진(Soo-Jin Kim)| 이지영(Ji-Young Lee)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a new combining multisensory reading treatment program for teaching the specific Korean phonological processes to the middle school students with delayed language development caused by mental retardation.
Methods
The new program is a combination the multisensory (AVK: Auditory, Visual and Kinesthetic) approach, the wholistic approach and metalinguistic approach. When reading aloud, phonological processes should be adopted in order to understand and transmit the meaning of the words. The targets of treatment for reading pronunciation with the phonological process were tensification, palatalization, and lateralization. The participants were three children with reading pronunciation difficulties in tensification, palatalization, and lateralization. A multiple probe design was used to evaluate the treatment and generalization effects.
Results
First, all three children improved on tensification, palatalization, and lateralization by the new combining multisensory reading treatment program. Second, it was effective in facilitating generalization on untrained words. Three children presented prominent generalization effects in lateralization. Third, the children were found to maintain partially their performance rates of the later phase of the reading with phonological process intervention three weeks after the termination of the training.
Discussion & Conclusion
The implication of this study is discussed in terms of the need of developing specialized Korean reading treatment program and individualized reading treatment in school.