Which is an example of stimulus generalization when teaching /f/ within a fricative stopping program? After the spring break,...

• A. The child correctly articulates 'feather, field, knife, coffee' on a generalization probe.
• B. The child's mother reports that he said 'I found five eggs' correctly during a party at home.
• C. The SLP notices that the child is now producing /v/ sounds correctly some of the time.
• D. The SLP notices that the child is stimulable for /ʃ/ whereas he could not imitate this sound previously.

Answer: (A)

Stimulus generalization happens when a newly learned speech sound is produced correctly in new words or contexts that weren’t part of the training. Here, the child says /f/ correctly in feather, field, knife, and coffee on a generalization probe—words not necessarily used during the direct teaching. That demonstrates the /f/ pattern learned in therapy is now extending to untrained contexts and different phonetic environments, which is exactly what generalization looks like.

The other options don’t show this pattern as clearly. A home report can reflect real-world use but isn’t a formal generalization probe across varied contexts. Producing /v/ correctly involves a different sound, not the generalization of /f/. Becoming stimulable for /ʃ/ indicates readiness to imitate that sound, not that /f/ has generalized to new contexts.