Stimulus control analysis of language disorders: A study of substitution between voiced and unvoiced consonants.
Voiced/unvoiced mix-ups often live in the cue, not the mouth—probe stimulus control before drilling speech.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Two children who swapped voiced and unvoiced consonants took matching-to-sample tests.
They also tried oral and written probes so the team could map exactly where stimulus control broke.
What they found
Each child showed a different faulty link.
Both could still hear and say the sounds when the right cue was given.
The errors were not motor problems; they were cue-control problems.
How this fits with other research
Layng et al. (2004) saw the flip side: typical kids learned new letter-sounds in one trial.
Both studies used stimulus-equivalence probes, showing how fast cue links can form or fail.
Gutierrez et al. (2007) also hunted for true stimulus control.
They taught picture mands then checked if the child really asked for the item that was absent.
Aman et al. (1993) used the same hunt inside speech sounds.
Together the papers say: test the cue, not just the response form.
Why it matters
If a learner says “big” for “pig,” run a quick matching-to-sample first.
When the child picks the voiced card for the voiced sound, you know the ear works.
Skip endless artic drills; aim your teaching at the exact cue that is missing.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study attempted to analyze defective stimulus control relations underlying persistent substitution between voiced and unvoiced consonants in the speech and writing of two children. A series of 20 tests was administered repeatedly. Some tests consisted of matching-to-sample tasks, with dictated words, printed words, or pictures as samples. Comparison stimuli were arranged in pairs of printed words or pictures, such that the only difference in their corresponding spoken words was the voicing of one consonant phoneme. In other tests, a stimulus (dictated word, printed word, or picture) was presented, and the subject was required to emit an oral response (repeat the dictated word, read the printed word, or name the picture) or a written response (write to dictation, copy the word, or write a picture name). Other tests required the subjects to make a same/different distinction in pairs of dictated words that did or did not differ in the voicing of a single phoneme. Results showed distinct deficit profiles for each subject, consisting of patterns of defective stimulus control relations. The subjects were able, however, to distinguish between voiced and unvoiced sounds and to produce these sounds.
The Analysis of verbal behavior, 1993 · doi:10.1007/BF03392885