Speech Sound Disorders – Articulation and Phonology

An articulation disorder involves difficulty producing speech sounds. Sounds can be substituted, omitted, added, or distorted. Young children often make speech errors. For instance, many children sound like they are making a “w” sound for an “r” or an “l” sound (e.g., “wabbit” for “rabbit” or “weaf” for “leaf”). The child may have an articulation disorder if these errors continue past the expected age.

Articulation development follows an orderly sequence, and developmental error patterns are to be expected at each stage in development. Increased coordination of the muscles in the lips, tongue, jaw, and soft palate are required for later developing sounds such as “r”, “th” and “l”.

The following demonstrates the general age ranges in which the correct production of General American English sounds should appear:

• By two years: p,b,d,t,m,n,w,h
• By four years: k,g,f,v,ing,
• By five years: s,z,ch,sh,j, l
• By six to seven years:  r,th

While some children may have difficulty with one or two sounds, other children have difficulty with a whole group of sounds that share similar characteristics.  These are known as phonological processes.  Phonological processes are a normal part of speech development, however when these error patterns persist beyond developmental norms, a child is described as having a phonological process disorder.

Examples of phonological processes seen in very young children include:

• Syllable deletion: the child leaves out the unstressed syllables in words (e.g. says “nana” for banana)
• Final consonant deletion: the child leaves off the ending consonant in words (e.g. says “da” for dog.)
• Reduplication of sounds or syllables: the child may say “baba” for bottle or “gog” for dog.
• Velar fronting: the child substitutes all sounds made in the back of the mouth, like “k” and “g”, for those in the front of the mouth, like “t” and “d” (e.g. saying “tup” for cup or “do” for go.)

Children with a history of a phonological process disorder are at higher risk for experiencing difficulty in literacy development because they demonstrate struggle with the phonological component of language.

Many speech sound disorders occur without a known cause. A child may not learn how to produce sounds correctly or may not learn the rules of speech sounds on his or her own. These children may have a problem with speech sound development, which does not always mean that they will simply outgrow it by themselves. Many children do develop speech sounds over time, but those who do not often need the services of a speech-language pathologist to learn correct speech sound production.

Some speech sound disorders can result from structural problems, such as cleft lip and/or palate, or motor-based difficulties, such as childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). There are also syndromes (e.g., Down Syndrome) and sensory conditions (e.g., hearing loss) that can affect the development of correct speech sound production.

Children who experience frequent ear infections are at risk for speech sound disorders if the ear infections were accompanied by hearing loss.

Speaking with an accent and/or dialect is not a speech sound disorder.