A Review on Evidence-Based Treatment in Phonological Interventions With Emphasis on Cycles Approach

Speech sounds disorders are regarded as the most significant problems among children’s communication disorders. Employing the clinical experience and expertise alongside with preserving the patient’s virtue, a therapeutic approach should be adopted based on valid clinical evidence. The Cycles Approach is proposed by Hodson for the treatment of moderate to severe phonological disorders. Given that the results are sometimes controversy in the field of pathology of speech and language, to ensure that time and resources are used ethically is of considerable importance. Therefore, the research studies using this approach in the treatment of speech disorder are analyzed in this review study.
The keywords of Phonology, Evidence-based Practice and Cycles Approach are chosen. Databases include Science Direct, PubMed, ASHA, and Springer. Sixteen papers were extracted from 1983 to December 2017. After the initial review, nine papers were selected for this review study.
The reduction of all phonological processes as well as development of phonological awareness of the child and improvement in phonological production and phonological awareness are approved following the treatment. Production of non-irritable sounds showed a significant improvement in the succeeding group and individual combination therapy. Furthermore early intervention leads to an increase in the percentage of correct consonants as well as mean length of utterance. The Cycles Approach results in the reduction of the spelling errors patterns at phoneme, word, sentence and conversation levels.
Considering the research studies over the past three decades, Cycles Approach can be considered as an evidence-based treatment and the therapists can apply it as an appropriate method to interfere with the speech sound disorders in children having moderate to severe phonological disorders.