Minimal pair contrast therapy o What is the therapy?
Minimal pair contrast therapy is a phonologically based approach that refers to the therapeutic use of pairs of words that differ by only one phoneme. It could be targeting one or more phonemes that are not in the child’s inventory. It teaches one target phoneme by pairing it with another produced- correctly phoneme. Or it targets two phonemes that are both absent from the child’s inventory, by pairing them together. For instance, jar & car represent a minimal pair.
o When to use Minimal pair contrast therapy?
It is mainly used with children with expressive language difficulties, who exhibit mild-moderate phonological impairments. Moreover, it is best suited with children who are stimulable for the target sound and have consistent errors
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(Steps).
1. Discussion of words. Clinician should make the child familiar with the words chosen, making sure the child can understand the concept of the word and its paired picture. The clinician may ask the child about the concept of the picture, for example: if the chosen minimal pair was bee,tea; the clinician should ask the child: which is a drink? Or which is an animal?.
2. Discrimination testing and training. The aim of this step is to make sure the child can discriminate between the two sounds selected, by repeating the two words randomly and ask the child to point towards the representative picture. Both poor memory skills and auditory discrimination can affect the child’s ability to discriminate, this must be noticed before continuing the therapy.
3. Production training. Clinicians instruct the child to tell them which picture to pick up. If the child produces the same word for the two pictures then the clinician will pick up the same picture twice, therefore the clinician will pick the non- intended word the child produced. If the child is not able to articulate one of the targeted sound then a motor approach could be