MISARTICULATION

Definition

 Phonology is the communication link that allows

language speakers and listeners to encode and decode
the intention ,meaning ,and structure of the language
 Articulation refers to the motor movements involved in
speech production.
 The units of phonology range in size from phonetic
features that describe articulatory movements
 Phonology subsumes articulation.
 Phonological disorders can be defined as a significant
deficit in speech production ,in speech perception ,or in
the organisation of phonology in comparison to child’s
peers.
 A speech sound disorder occurs when difficulties making
certain sounds continue past a certain age.
 Every sound has a different range of ages when a child
should produce the sound accurately.
 If an individual’s articulation deviates significantly from
the norms, it may be diagnosed as an articulation
disorder.
 It is a subcategory of speech sound disorder (Shriberg et
al 2010)
  Disorder of articulation is that he has failed to master
the speech sounds of his language.
 Patters of errors include:
a)A substitution of one standard English phoneme for
another,
b)A distortion of a standard sound ,
c)An omission of a sound that should be present,
Causes

The causes of misarticulation includes any problem to these:

 Motor Abilities
 Speech perception and hearing
 Oral mechanism
 Intelligence and general development
 Language
Characteristics of each as follows:

Motor abilities
 Oral motor abilities are related to abilities in common fashion.
 Child with developmental apraxia of speech: have difficulty in
motor production of speech
 This speech disorders are severe and are resistant to therapy.
 This disorder is developmental and characterised by syllable
omission ,consonant substitution and vowel errors.
  Silent posturing errors (static articulatory postures without
sound production)
 Articulatory grouping errors a series of articulatory movements
in an attempt to find the correct placement or position for the
production of sound.
 Developmental dysarthria in cerebral palsy: generally
insufficient or imprecise articulation as a result of affected
strength, tone ,speed and range of movement.
 Less proficient articulation in connected speech than in single
word
 Predominance of omission over substitution or distortions.

Speech perception and hearing

The acquisition of phonology directly depend on exposure to the
language of the environment so ,normal hearing and perception is
crucial.
Phonological deficits in children with hearing impairment vary
with type and severity of hearing loss, the child’s age , when it
occurred and the child’s age when intervention begins.
 Vowels, nasal vs non nasal sounds ,[r],[i]
 Unstressed syllables, voiceless fricatives ,voiceless vowels
Pose challenge to the kids
Other are the children with hearing impairment due to otitis media.
This is an infection in the middle ear with fluid effusion leading to
conductive hearing loss.
 Children(0-12) who had frequent episodes of otitis media
produced more consonants that are more visible.
Example[p],[b] than that are less visible Example [t] [d]
 At two years these children had greater difficulty producing
words or syllables with final consonants than children who do
not have frequent otitis media.
 Omission of initial and final consonants and consonant clusters;
omission of /s/
 Substitution of voiced consonants for unvoiced consonants;
nasal consonants for oral consonants
 Distortion of sounds especially of stops and fricatives.

ORAL MECHANISM

Adequate oral structure and physiology along with adequate

respiration are required for speech production and phonological
acquisition.
The most common cause under this heading is the result of
craniofacial anomaly referred to commonly as cleft lip and
palate.
The phonological deficits associated with CLP include
Hypernasality ,nasal emission and poor production of sound that
depends on intra aural breath pressure(stops and fricatives).
Some children with CLP produce sounds at the back of the aural
cavity in the pharynx or at the glottis to compensate for their
inability to produce the sounds at the appropriate place of the
articulation.

 Greater difficulty with voiced sounds than with unvoiced sounds

 Weak production of fricatives , africatives and stops
 Substitution of nasal sounds for non nasal sounds
 Distortion of some vowels
 Reduced speech intelligibility to varying extents, depending on
the number and types of articulation errors
INTELLIGENCE AND GENERAL DEVELOPMENT

Those who have intellectual impairment there may be

consonant omission as most common error as phonological
impairment( Shriberg and Bidar 1990).The errors are the result
of cognitive limitation in one of the stages of speech production.

One special subgroup of children with developmental disabilities

those with Down syndrome .In down syndrome there is a
complex interaction of motor deficits that effects speech
production with some particular difficulties high or low
distinctions in vowels and front or back distinctions in
consonants and vowels in speech production.

LANGUAGE

In children who were late occurs who have identifiable syntactic

deficits (low mean length of utterance) are likely to have
comparably delayed phonological abilities children that specific
language impairment have deficits in the perception of
grammatical motives that may underlie deficits in syntax and
morphology with impairment of phonology. Example
/s/,/z/,final consonants in general or unstressed syllables (R Paul
and Shriberg)
REFERENCES
Human Communication Disorders An introduction By
Noma B. Anderson, George H. Shames
Assessment and Treatment of Speech Sound Disorders
in Children by M N Hegde
Articulation and Phonology in Speech Sound Disorder
by J B Waengler
An introduction to Speech Pathology and Audiology by
Charles van riper, Robert L. Erickson

HAVYA SREE.M
A SECTION 1ST YEAR BASLP