The production of speech

Noticeable differences in speech production can have a negative impact on:

• Self confidence

• Peer relationships

• Vocational/career opportunities

             ARTICULATION IMPAIRMENT: 

          Characterized by substitution, omission, distortion and/or addition of speech sounds.

1.   Substitution: The use of one sound for another, e.g., /wike/ for /like/.

2.   Omission:  The lack of use of a sound, e.g., /top/ for /stop/.

3.   Distortion:  The incorrect production of a particular sound, e.g., lateral emission of air in production of /s/ and /sh/ as in /soup/ for or /show/.

4.   Addition:  The use of an extra sound, e.g., /tsoup/ or /soup/.      

             Articulation impairment may also be described according to the rules of phonological processes:

The specific articulation rating scale is Scale II in the Severity Rating Scale.  Definitions of particular phonological processes are provided as follows: (The definitions are taken from the Glossary of Hodson, Barbara W. and Elaine P. Paden.  Targeting Intelligible Speech A Phonological Approach to Remediation.  San Diego:  College-Hill Press, 1983.)

1.   Backing: Replacing a consonant produced in the back of the mouth with one produced farther forward, e.g., “k” for “t”.

2.   Fronting:  Replacing a consonant produced in the back of the mouth with one produced farther forward, e.g., “t” for “k”.

3.   Consonant cluster reduction:  Dropping one or more of the consonants in a consonant cluster (two or more consecutive consonants in the same syllable) e.g., “b” for “bl” in “blue”.

4.   Stopping: Replacing any continuing consonant with a stop, e.g., “t” for “s” as in “tun” for “sun”.

5.   Metathesis: Reversal of sequential position of two sounds, e.g., “aminals” for “animals”.

6.   Reduplication:  Repeating the same syllable or sound in place of two or more different sounds, e.g., “tata” for “table”.

7.   Affrication/Deaffrication:  Using or failing to use an affricate appropriately.  An affricate is a consonant produced by a complete stoppage of air followed by a relatively, slow     turbulent release of air, e.g., “ch” as in “church” or “j” as in “judge”.  Affrication would be the use of affricate, e.g., “chew” for “shoe”; Deaffrication, the failure to use an affricate correctly, e.g., “dump” for “jump”.

8.   Stridency Deletion:  Omission of the strident feature by substitution of a nonstrident sound, or by omission of the sound completely.  Stridents are consonants characterized by considerable noisy turbulence caused by forceful air flow striking the back of the teeth, e.g., “f, v, s, z, sh, zh, ch, j (as in “jump”).

9.   Gliding:  Replacing a phoneme from another consonant class with a glide, the “w” or “y” as in “yellow” sounds.  Gliding occurs most often with the replacing of a liquid (“r” and “l” sounds) with a glide, e.g., “wed” for “red”.

10.  Vowelization: Replacing a postvocalic or syllabic liquid with a vowel, e.g., “watuh” for “water”.

               The University of Iowa has a web site which contains animated libraries of the phonetic sounds of Spanish and English. Available for each consonant and vowel is an animated articulatory diagram, a step-by-step description, and video-audio of the sound spoken in context.  This site is helpful to give students a visual model of how a sound is made.