Acquisition of Speech SoundsThe articulation or speech sound development looks at how children development specific sounds (also called phonemes). Researchers sometimes have differing results due to how their studies are conducted, but this chart provides a general summary of when English sounds are mastered by children. When assessing children with articulation concerns, therapists will use typical development as a guideline for what speech sounds the student should have mastered according to their age. Therefore, if a student at 4 years of age has yet to master their 'r' sound, the therapist may determine that error to be developmentally appropriate and would not require treatment for that target sound.
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IntelligibilityTherapists will also look at their overall understandability or overall intelligibility, which is a perceptual judgment made by the therapist on how well they understand the student. When determining a need for services, a general guideline is that the poorer the intelligibility, the more likely the child needs intervention. A child 3 years old or older who is unintelligible to the listener is a candidate for intervention.
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Acquisition of Phonological SkillsPhonological processes are the development of sound patterns also called processes. When children at an early age say 'nana' for 'banana', this is an example of the weak syllable deletion process. It is believed that children produce these errors because they are simplifying the adult model of how the words are said. These simplifications are called phonological processes. As children develop and gain language knowledge the phonological processes disappear/or are eliminated. Age of elimination is outlined in the graph to the right.
Speech therapists may give a student an assessment that looks specifically at their phonological development, to determine their specific error patterns. |