Full Goal

Given a model with exaggerated continuant duration (‘sssssoap’), tactile or visual airflow cue (hand in front of mouth, paper that moves with airflow), and a minimal pair contrast when available (‘sip’ vs. ‘tip’), [Student] will produce /f/, /s/, and /ʃ/ as continuants (sustained airflow) in the initial position of single words with 80% accuracy across 3 consecutive probes, sampling all three fricative targets, as measured by SLP transcription with perceptual judgment of fricative versus stop production, supported by audio recording for inter-rater reliability checks.

Individualization Guidance

Before using this goal, verify:

• Stopping is a pattern, not a single-sound error. A child who stops /f/ to [p], /s/ to [t], and /ʃ/ to [t] shares an underlying process: continuant feature is not implemented. Targeting one fricative at a time misses the pattern. Sampling across three fricatives in one goal forces the pattern itself to be the target.
• Place of articulation should match the substitution. Stopping typically produces homorganic substitutions (/f/→[p], /s/→[t]). If the child stops /s/ to [p] across the board, that’s stopping plus backing/fronting interaction — not pure stopping. Document the exact substitution pattern.
• Voicing should hold steady. A voiceless fricative replaced by a voiceless stop is pure stopping. A voiceless fricative replaced by a voiced stop layers two processes. Disentangle these in your analysis — the goal is for stopping only.
• Airflow cueing is more useful than place cueing. For fricatives, the feature being learned is sustained turbulent airflow. A mirror, a piece of tissue paper that flutters in the airstream, or a hand cupped at the mouth gives more proportionate feedback than placement diagrams.
• Developmental expectations. Stopping of /f/ resolves earliest (around age 3:6); stopping of /s/ around age 4; stopping of /ʃ/ may persist to age 5-6. Targeting stopping in a child below the developmental ceiling for that specific fricative may be premature.
• Final and medial position are separate goals. This goal targets initial position only. Generalization to other word positions is typically robust but not automatic — write successor goals for medial and final positions when initial is mastered.

Clinical Notes

The 80% criterion sampling all three targets is the structural anti-bias of the goal: a child can hit 80% on /f/ alone and look mastered while still stopping /s/ and /ʃ/. The cross-target sampling forces honest measurement.

Audio recording is a meaningful addition to transcription for fricatives. The perceptual distinction between a brief fricative and an aspirated stop in fast or quiet speech is subtle. Audio review (and ideally a second rater on a sample) calibrates the perceptual judgment.

Stopping co-occurs with other phonological processes at high rates — final consonant deletion, fronting, cluster reduction. A child with multiple active processes benefits from a cycles approach (Hodson) where each process gets a focused cycle of treatment rather than parallel work. Single-process goals like this one are appropriate when stopping is the dominant or persisting pattern after other processes have suppressed.

This goal does not target affricates (/tʃ/, /dʒ/). Affricates are stop-fricative composites and are typically a separate developmental target. Bundling them with pure fricatives confounds the data.

Related Goals

• Final Consonant Production in CVC Words — another phonological-process goal, often co-occurring with stopping
• Velar Production — Suppression of Fronting — place-based phonological process for comparison