How Do I Know If My Child Has an Articulation Problem?
By Gail Del Grosso, MS CCC/SLP
Nearly
one million children have an articulation problem. An articulation
problem exists when a child produces sounds, syllables or words incorrectly so
that the listener does not understand what is being said.
Articulation problems may result from physical handicaps such as cleft palate,
hearing loss or other problems of the mouth, such as orofacial
myofunctional problems ("tongue
thrust"). However most articulation problems are
functional in nature with an absence of any obvious physical disability.
Children acquire their sounds by listening to speech around them.
Frequent ear infection problems may result in failure to learn speech sound and
may result in unintelligible speech.
The
gradual process of acquiring adult speech patterns is called phonological
development. Phonological development involves three aspects: the way the
sound is stored in the child's mind; the way the sound is actually said by the
child; and the rules or processes that map between the two above. By age
3 a child's speech (articulation) is normally 75-100% intelligible.
Sounds such as "h, y, n, ng, m, w, p, t, b, d,
g, k" are learned as early as 3 years of
age. Other sounds like "s", "r", and "l"
are often not mastered until the early school years. By age 7 all sounds
are usually developed.
Children may exhibit the following articulation errors: sound
substitution, sound distortions and omission errors. Sound substitutions
errors are when a child substitutes one sound for another such as, wing/ring, baf/bath; sound distortion
errors are lateralizations of the "s, sh, ch, j" sound
productions; and omissions errors are when a child omits a sound such as, ba/ball.
Parents
should make sure that their children receive a regular hearing evaluation from
a certified audiologist, particularly if there is a history of ear infections,
allergies and frequent upper respiratory infections.
If you
suspect your child has an articulation problem a certified Speech Language
Pathologist can evaluate and help your child with his/her articulation
problem. The Speech Language Pathologist can tell if your child's speech
sounds are developing within the "norms". If your child's
speech development is not within the "developmental norms"
traditional articulation therapy involves behavioral techniques which focus on
teaching children new sounds in place of the error sounds. Working with
correct placement of the sound in isolation, then words, phrases, sentences
will eventually lead to normal conversational speech. Parental
involvement with carry over of newly learned articulation skills at home is
essential to foster positive and faster progress.
Gail Del Grosso, M.S. CCC/SLP
973-875-0533
Email: tristatespeechcenter@embarqmail.com