The Articulation Round Robin of Words (ARROW) program is designed for students in grades PK-5 who present with speech sound disorders.

The program targets speech sound production at the word, phrase, and sentence levels. An impressive collection of words, filterable by target sound position, allows for increased practice opportunities across articulation targets. In addition, each target word is provided in the context of a single word, phrase, and sentence. Photographs and icons are associated with each target word, allowing students of all ages to interact with the program.

The variety of materials provides the opportunity for strategic variable practice to target goals. This aligns with research that shows variable practice across word positions facilitates generalization to conversational speech (Ruscello, 1975; Preston et al, 2017).

Evidence in Action

Articulation therapy accounts for the largest percentage of school-age children on an SLP’s caseload (ASHA, 2020). Children with speech sound disorders are at risk of developing reading and writing difficulties (Anthony et al., 2011), and thus it is important to target speech sound remediation in the school setting.

Evidence	Expression in Program
The multiple phonemic approach targets more than one sound each session as some sounds may require practice at the syllable level while other sounds may be practiced in phrases or sentences (McCabe & Bradley, 1975).	All sounds and positions are included, each containing multiple levels of contextual complexity (i.e., single words, phrases, and sentences).
The four-stage model of speech sound learning includes elicitation (producing the sound in isolation or in syllables), stabilization (producing the sound in syllables, words, or phrases), generalization (producing the sound in untrained words/contexts), and maintenance (retention over time) (Williams, A. Lynn, Sharynne McLeod, and Rebecca J. McCauley., 2010).	All targets have multiple levels of context - single word, phrase, and sentence.
It can take between 1,900 and 2,300 trials to reach the stabilization phase for a target sound (Preston et al., 2017).	Many words are included for each target sound, allowing for multiple trials during therapy.
Following the principles of motor learning for sounds that are minimally stimulable, frequent, immediate knowledge of performance feedback (e.g., detailed feedback about movements) contributes to acquisition and learning (Williams, A. Lynn, Sharynne McLeod, and Rebecca J. McCauley., 2010).	Feedback focuses on the motor movements needed to accurately produce target sounds.

Evidence-based Program Use

Target more than one speech sound or sound position per session as appropriate for your student.

Practice a wide variety of target words to reduce repetition while working toward sound stabilization.

Aim for the student to produce as many trials with a target sound as possible to reach the stabilization phase.

The principles in the evidence used to create this Program can be used across a variety of therapy sessions. With any articulation practice, encourage the student to produce as many trials as possible. When students are learning how to produce a sound, give them detailed, specific feedback about their sound production.

Scope & Sequence

Educators should start by selecting the target-sound position within the context that allows the student to be most successful. From there, targets should be chosen so that they become gradually more difficult. For example, once the student is able to produce a target sound-position at the syllable level, they should start to practice the sound-position in words, then phrases, then sentences, as illustrated below.

Initial /s/ in words → Initial /s/ in phrases → Initial /s/ in sentences

To facilitate this type of skill progression, the target words are organized by sound-position and further organized by context (i.e., word, phrase, or sentence level). Further organizational layers include number of syllables and syllable shape so that the most appropriate target words can be found based on each student’s individual needs.

Extended Applications

Although ARROW was specifically designed to be an articulation program, the program can also be used to target vocabulary and fluency. Note that the program will not be able to record vocabulary and fluency data as it’s only designed to measure articulation correctness.

Vocabulary:

Word Level: ARROW target words at the word level can be used to target word definitions. This could target a goal such as, "When provided with a word and its picture, the student will define the word correctly..."
1. Note: The educator is responsible for choosing target words and providing cues that would best help each individual student when targeting vocabulary within the ARROW program.
Sentence and phrase levels: ARROW phrases and sentences can be used to target descriptions. This could target a goal such as, “Given a picture of the word and a verbal prompt, the student will describe 2-3 features of the target word…”
1. Note: The educator is responsible for choosing target phrases/sentences and providing cues that would best help each individual student when targeting vocabulary within the ARROW program.

Fluency:

The target words and images from the ARROW program can be used to work on speech fluency and flow of speech. The educator can target the repetition of sounds, syllables, or words; prolongation of sounds; and interruptions in speech while teaching fluency strategies such as fluency shaping and fluency modification. The educator presents the image to the student and asks to produce a sentence about it. The student produces a sentence practicing the fluency strategies to decrease the disfluencies.

Quick Reference Sheet

The Articulation Round Robin of Words (ARROW) program is designed for students in grades PK-5 who present with a speech sound disorder. ARROW targets speech sound production at the word, phrase, and sentence levels.

What do I do for each activity?

Step 1: Direct Instructions

Introduce the topic of the activity.
Review the direct instructions.
- Modify, model and prompt as needed to support the student.
- Following the correct placement practice, complete the exercises in which the student needs to say the word with correct articulatory placement.

Step 2: Exercises

Exercises can be directly presented on the educator’s device or assigned to the student to be completed on their device.
Use the prompts that are most effective for each student and model as needed during the activity.
Data is collected only when the activity is assigned to the student.
Repeat this activity as many times as needed to ensure that the student can produce their target sound.

Which positions and context levels does ARROW target?

Each target sound has stimuli for the word, phrase, and sentence levels. Activities are categorized by the sound’s position in the target word (i.e., initial, medial, and final).

How do I give feedback for Speech Sound Activities?

Give feedback based on the outcome and the student’s support needs (acquisition = needs significant support/prompting to produce the sound in a word; generalization = needs minimal support/prompting).

ARROW Program Manual

You may access this information and MORE in the ARROW Program Manual - located in the Program Library on the platform. Once you're in ARROW, simply select the "i" beside the program name. This will open the manual for your review!