• Phase 1: Developing phonemic awareness

  • The child and clinician explore the properties of sounds together, how sounds differ from each other, and the importance of these distinctions.

  • Substitution processes:

    • Concept level- noisy vs. whisper, long vs. short, front vs. back

    • Sound level- noises and music instruments are used to demonstrate concepts such as roaring and whisper.

    • Phoneme level- Sounds that are different are contrasted with one another (stops are contrasted with fricatives)

    • Word level- minimal pairs are introduced and the child is asked if the sound is long or short, front or back, noisy or whispered.

  • Syllable Structure processes

    • Concept level- beginning or end

    • Syllable/word level- V and CV syllables are introduced with the analogy of a train with or without an engine.

• Phase 2: Developing Phonological and Communicative Awareness:

  • Clinician and child take turns producing minimal pairs. If an incorrect production is made the clinician draws the child's attention to the salient characteristics.

  • (Bauman-Waengler, 2020)

"Metaphon therapy assumes that children with phonological disorders fail to realize the communicative significance of the phonological rule system" (Bauman-Waengler, 2020, p. 372). Metaphon therapy strives to correct this by providing children with information that helps them make their own changes to their speech output (Bauman-Waengler, 2020).