Articulation disorders

What is “Articulation disorders”?

Articulation is the process in which sounds are produced when the articulators (lips, tongue, jaw, palate and teeth) alter the air that is coming from the vocal folds. However, when an individual cannot produce or distort a sound that is expected in a certain age, it affects the intelligibility of the person and the listener understanding. So; Articulation disorders area subcategory of speech disorders and they are motor errors that can happen among people in all ages but most common in children.

What are the types articulation disorders?

1- substitution 2- omission 3- addition 4- distortion.

1- Substitution: substitutes one sound with another. For example, the use the sound “w” instead of “r” in “wabbit” for “rabbit”.

2- Omission (deletion): deleting some sound. For example, deleting the “s” in “poon” for “spoon”.

3- Addition: adding or inserting one or more than one sound in a word. For example, adding the sound “uh” in “buhlack” for “black”.

4- Distortion: changing or alerting sounds. For example, a lateral “s”.

What are the causes?

The cause is UNKNOWN ; however, there are some risk factors that could influence the occurrence of the articulation disorders:

1- Gender : males are at more risk of articulation disorders than females.

2- Pre- and perinatal issues: maternal stress and infections during the time of pregnancy, preterm delivery, and low-weight could be factors associated with speech and sounds disorders.

3- Family history: children who are born to parents with articulation disorders are more likely to have language/articulation disorders.

4- Persistent otitis media with effusion has been associated with speech development problems.

consonants vs. vowels:

• Place of articulation for consonants: bilabial, interdental, labiodental, alveolar, palatal and velar.   
• Manner of articulation for consonants: stop, fricative, affricate, liquids, glides, nasal.
• Voicing for consonants: voiced, voiceless.
• Articulation of vowels has five characters: tense/lack, front/back, high/low, rounded/ unrounded, /r/-coloring.

Articulation phonetics:

• Deals with the production’s features of speech sounds, their categorization, and classification according to specific details of their production.

Examples of common articulation disorders:

– phonological processes:

1- Syllable structure processes:

• Reduplication: common process during children’s first 50-words stage ; e.g. [Wawa] for “Water”.
• Final consonant deletion: another early process ; e.g. (do) for “dog”.
• Weak(unstressed) syllable deletion: suppressed later than FCD ; e.g. [nænɘ] for “banana”.
• Consonant cluster reduction: lasts for a relatively longer time ; e.g. [pun].
• Epenthesis: intrusive schwa ; e.g. [pɘliz] for “please”.

2- Substitution processes:

• Stopping: replacement of stops for fricatives and affricates ; [tʌn] for “sun”.
• Fronting : replacing palatals and velars with alveolar consonants ; [tʊti] for “cookie”.
• Gliding of [r] and [l]: can be found even in children as old as seven years ; [wes] for “race”.

3- Assimilation processes:

• Velar harmony: velar assimilation ; [gɔk] for “dog”, [kak] for “talk”.
• Assimilation processes which influence preceding consonants (progressive) ; e.g. [bebu] for “table”, [bap] for “stop”.

4- Voicing changes:

• Initial (prevocalic) voicing: when consonant comes between vowel, the child start to do some voicing ; “top” become [dap].
• Final devoicing: voiced obstruents in the syllable at the end of a word become voiceless ; e.g. “pig” become [pɪk].

5- Some unusual deletion:

• Initial consonant deletion: at all consonants at the beginning of words will be deleted ; “shoe” become [u].
• Glottal replacement: when consonant is replaced with glottal stop [ʔ] ; e.g. “chicken” become [tʃɪʔɪn].
• Backing:  Replacing a non-velar or non-glottal consonant with a velar or glottal consonant ; e.g. “tea” become [ki].

Resource: American speech-language-hearing association.

Resource: Paul, R., & Norbury, C. (2007). Language disorders from infancy through adolescence Assessment and intervention. St. Luis, MO: Mosby.