Articulation Disorder

An articulation disorder can be described as difficulty making individual speech sounds. Speech sounds can be substituted (substitution), left off (ommision), added (addition) or distored (distortion). Speech sounds are idenfitied by the location within the mouth that the sound is formed. They can also be defined in the manner in which the are produced by the mouth. Speech sounds develop in developmental order and articulation disorders can be discovered when a child is using these sounds in error past the expected age for mastery. These errors in speech may make it hard for either familiar or unfamilair listeners to understand.

Types of Articulation Errors

Substitution- The most common type of speech sound error, substitution can be identified by one sound being replace by another in a word. For Example: "thun" for "sun" or "wabbit" for "rabbit"

Omission- Omission can be described as "leaving off" a sound in a word. For Example: "ca for cat" or "og for dog"

Addition- An atypical and least likely speech sound error, addition is when an additional speech sound is added to a word. For Example: "doga for dog"

Distortion- Distorian is when a typically developing sound is distorted in a word using a anon-typical sound. Distortian is caused by deficiant oral motor skills. For Example: a lateral /s/ sound can occur when producing the /s/ sound results in air escaping from of the sides of the mouth, causing a "slushy" /s/ sound.

What Should My Child Be Able to Produce?

When Should I Seek a Speech Evaluation?

- If your child becomes embarrassed or easily frustrated at not being understood

- If your child is having difficulty moving his/her jaw and tongue

- If your child is of "school-age" and has multiple speech sound errors

What could therapy look like?

Using techniques from

The Entire World of R

Examples of evaluation and treatment of the /r/ sound (vocalic r) using protocols from The Entire World of R. What's useful with this video is to see and hear that the student, who obviously cannot produce /r/ initially, can in fact successfully say the word "serious" after shaping by the speech-language pathologist.

Sources: Speech Sound Disorders: Articulation and Phonological Processes. (n.d.). Retrieved November 29, 2014, from http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/SpeechSoundDisorders/#causes

Speech Sound Disorders | NW Speech Therapy. (2013, January 1). Retrieved November 29, 2014, from http://www.nwspeechtherapy.com/functional-articulation-disorders.html