A Computer-Assisted Diagnostic and Prescriptive Tool For Use in Teaching Speech to the Deaf

The computer program described in this article is designed to work on an Apple II Plus or Apple IIe computer. It is most properly characterized as a tool that improves teacher effectiveness because it performs many of the recording and other routine functions for teachers. The program prompts teachers for information about each child under their tutelage. This information is gathered from the administration of the Ling Phonetic and Phonologic Inventories (1976a). The teacher merely enters the data when prompted to do so by the program. A permanent record of the child's progress is maintained from this information.

Two major outputs are available from the program: (a) a personalized listing of the student's current level of speech skill in profile form: and (b) a description of the antecedent skills and the proper order of instruction for the six most relevant speech subskills not currently being produced correctly by the student. Suggestions for strategies to help the teacher plan learning activities are listed with the description of the faulty speech subskills. This approach allows a teacher/clinician with relatively meager experience, such as a student in training, to have access to a rich store of information tailored for a specific child.