Contextual Test of Articulation. (2000). By Dawn Aase, Charity Hovre, Karleen Krause, Sarah Schelfhout, Jennifer Smith, & Linda J. Carpenter. Thinking Publications, 424 Gallaway St., Eau Claire, WI 54703. 50-page manual, 195 color picture plates; $129. Reviewed by Traci W. Ingram, St. Louis, MO.

The Contextual Test of Articulation (CTA) is a hardcover, spiral-bound test book. It contains the manual and six sets of stimulus pictures. The stimulus picture sets elicit production of the phonemes /s/, /l/, /k/, and /r/; production of the semivowel /er/; and production of 15 consonant clusters (sm, sn, sl, st, sk, sp, pl, bl, kl, kr, tr, dr, br, mp, nt) in a variety of contexts. The appendices provide reproducible score forms; an index of stimulus words; a summary of manner, place, and voicing; and the American English vowel quadrilateral. This test is appropriate for children 4 and up. It is not intended to be used as an initial evaluation, but as a measure to look more closely at sound errors that have already been identified.

The CTA should be administered by a qualified speech-language pathologist and/or by appropriately supervised students enrolled in training programs for speech-language pathology. All test administrators should have a basic knowledge in phonetics, the nature of phonological disorders, and assessment and interpretation procedures. The initial evaluation should be available and reviewed prior to administration of the CTA .

Preliminary field testing was conducted in two west-central Wisconsin communities in daycare centers and education facilities. These field tests were conducted in order to guarantee that stimulus items were appropriate for young children to identify, to determine if prompts were effective, and to gather information from clinicians who had used the evaluation. Revisions were made and the test was re-field tested in an urban school district in Southern California and in a childhood special education program in Minnesota. The major goals of these field tests were to ensure that the test was appropriate for culturally diverse populations and to evaluate revisions.

This test is a useful addition to the routine articulation evaluation. It helps to examine the phonetic context of each sound in error. This test is easy to administer and takes approximately 20 minutes to evaluate each sound in error. The manual is color-coded in order to find each sound quickly during administration.

This is a well-designed evaluation measure. Every consonant is paired with up to seven vowels. The test provided three opportunities for production of each consonant vowel combination in the prevocalic and postvocalic positions. Most of the pictures are very engaging to young children, though some were consistently difficult for very young children without the use of a prompt. The reproducible test forms were easy to score and interpret after administration. The CTA , along with an initial articulation and/or phonology test, provides the clinician with a clear picture of each sound in error. This knowledge aids in writing a more effective treatment plan.