BBSQ5112: Disorders of Articulation

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BBSQ5112 Disorders of Articulation Phonology

• Lecture 4 Articulation
• Causes of articulation disorders

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Some definitions

• Articulation the act or manner of producing a
  speech sound bringing articulatory organs
  together so as to shape the sounds of speech
• Phonetics how the sounds of language are
  articulated and perceived
• Phonology the mental representation of sounds
  and their structures operations across these
  representations

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Levels of representation

• Articulation is physical a process determined
  by muscles, nerves, physiology
• Phonetics and phonology are to do with mental
  representation phonetics is concerned with (the
  mental representation of) acoustic, articulatory
  and perceptual properties of sounds, and
  phonology is concerned with the system of sounds
  within a language

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• Knowledge about the properties of sounds
• physical - mental
• events
• sequences representing representing physical
  interactions
• properties processes
• like a lexicon like grammar
• Articulation Phonetics Phonology

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A functional view of the speech processSource
Clark and Yallop 1995 12
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Causes of articulation disorders

• Hearing loss ?
• Omission final consonants, /s/, initial
  consonants
• Substitution voicing, nasalization, vowels, low
  feedback substitutions
• Distortions force, hypernasality, duration
• Additions epenthesis, diphthongization
• Otitis media ? velar deviations, cluster reduction

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Causes of articulation disorders

• Auditory perception deficits poor speech sound
  discrimination skills may be causally linked to
  poor articulation performance
• Winitz (1984) absence of consistent research
  results relevance of discrimination test items,
  specific articulation errors, phonetic (and
  other) context of a production
• Perception precedes production

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Causes of articulation disorders

• Range of structural variations in the speech
  mechanism
• Minor variations do not consistently have effects
  on articulation
• Ankyloglossia
• Surgically repaired cleft lip / palate
• Major structural variations
• Lips compensatory articulation gestures can
  produce acoustically acceptable imitations e.g.
  labiodental instead of labial
• Tongue partial or total excision
• Velopharyngeal incompetence
• Nasopharynx e.g. enlarged adenoids

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Causes of articulation disorders

• Idiopathic
• developmental speech apraxia
• Neurological
• Dysarthria the misarticulation of speech sounds
  due to paralysis, weakness or loss of sensation
  to muscle groups involved in articulation
• Dyspraxia impaired ability to plan the rapid and
  sequential movement of articulators in the
  absence of paralysis or other muscle weakness or
  loss of sensation

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Classifiying speech disorders

• Functional vs organic
• Organic speech disorders have an identifiable
  physical cause
• Functional speech disorders have no obvious
  organic cause
• Developmental phonological disorders (i.e.
  language-based)
• speech delay of unknown origin
• Seen in 5-10 of preschool children
• Only 80-90 fully resolve
• 1-2 of adults have residual distortion problems

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Classifying speech disorders

• E.g. Shriberg (2002)
• Considered classification by
• Behavior Sarah makes the following speech
  errors
• Proximal cause The explanation for Sarahs
  speech errors is a problem with
• Distal cause The cause of Sarahs speech errors
  is .

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Speech Disorders Classification System
Classification by etiology
Speech sound disorders in children
Speech Disorders of unknown origin
Speech disorders of known origin
Speech delay (SD) 3-6 years
Questionable residual errors (QRE-B) 6-9 yrs
Residual errors A (RE-A) 9 yrs
Normalized speech acquisition (NSA) 9 yrs
Residual errors B (RE-B) 9 yrs
Speech delay genetic (SD-GEN)
Speech delay otitis media with effusion (SD-OME)
Speech delay apraxia of speech (SD-AOS)
Speech delay developmental psychosocial
involvement (SD-DPI)
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Classification by speech behaviors

• Dodd (1999)
• Articulation disorder motor problems
• Delay uses natural processes like those in the
  speech of younger children
• Deviant consistent use unusual processes, but
  apply them consistently
• Deviant inconsistent use deviant processes
  inconsistently
• The last category is the most resistant to
  remediation

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How do we decide on the classification?

• Articulation disorder vs phonological disorder
• For each sound error which could be targeted in
  therapy
• Is the sound ever produced correctly?
• Does the sound ever appear accidentally?
• Is the contrast marked in some other way?
• Is the child stimulable for the sound?
• Can the child discriminate the sound?

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Assessment

• May show positional constraints
• May show substitution errors e.g. puzzle ?
  /p_at_dl/ but puddle ? /p_at_gl/
• Contrast marking
• If a child can reproduce the sound after they
  hear it (when they normally dont use it), this
  suggests that the child has some knowledge about
  the sound
• May be able to distinguish sounds that they dont
  normally produce

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Management of articulation disorders

• Follow developmental pattern
• Target sounds that will influence intelligibility
  high frequency sounds first
• Assess stimulability, and target sounds that the
  child is stimulable for
• Auditory discrimination training, modeling,
  phonetic placement
• Teach sounds in isolation, then in increasingly
  complex contexts, up to the phrase level