Parent Articulation Concerns

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For a child, learning to speak is a process.  He/she may produce a sound incorrectly at first, but will often self-correct through maturity.  When a child is unable to self-correct a speech sound, it becomes either an articulation delay/disorder or a phonological process disorder, depending on the type of error(s) he/she is producing. 

If a child is having difficulty making sounds consistently, he/she is demonstrating an 

articulation disorder. 

The child is either substituting one sound for another (i.e., saying “woad” for “road”), leaving a sound out completely (i.e., saying “and” for “hand”), or adding and changing sounds.  It is important to note that not all substitutions and omissions are speech errors.  They could possibly be the result of a regional dialect or accent.   

When a child is producing patterns of sound errors, he/she is demonstrating a 

phonological disorder.  Here are some examples:

Fronting

– a sound made in the back of the mouth is replaced with a sound made

in the front of the mouth, which results in saying “tee” for “key”

Cluster reduction

– child leaves out a sound in a word, such as “bock” for “block”

Velar assimilation

– saying “kack” for “tack”

Nasal assimilation

– saying “money” for “funny”

Stopping

– saying “dump” for “jump”

Gliding

– saying “wabbit” for “rabbit”

Deaffrication

– saying “shop” for “chop”

Weak syllable reduction

– saying “nana” for “banana”

Final consonant deletion

- saying “bu” for “bus

All of these sounds should be resolved by a certain age range. Please contact us to find out if your child is meeting those developmental age milestones.