Diagnostic Evaluation Of Articulation And Phonology Challenges In Children: A Case Study
Understanding the Phonological Process in Children
Discuss About The Diagnostic Evaluation Articulation Phonology.
The child is able to pronounce vowels a, e, and o but has a challenge with some vowels like Pram, helicopter, giraffe, orange, and gloves. These are the nasal paired words.
The child has problems with vowels like “u” as seen in the example of combination vowels “ou” in ‘Thank you’. The child is also missing vowel combinations ‘ui’ as seen in ‘biscuits’ and ‘ua’ in ‘Square’
Consonants include b, c, d. f, g, h, j, k, m, p, q, s, t, y, and z.he child has a good grasp of the bilabial and labiodental consonants “b”, “m, f, and v”
Consonants missing in the child’s pronunciation include, x (not enlisted), v (not voices e.g in five), r (not voiced as in ‘crab’ and ‘orange’). Consonant ‘l’ in yellow and gloves is also not voiced.
Sound ‘n’ in snake is silent, and sound’s’ in tomato is also replaced by‘d’
- Positional constraints of consonants
Consonants with positional constraints in this case include those with long words. Tobby has a challenge with combination consonants. For example, helicopter with six consonants and a combination of “pt” consonants. Splashing with a combination of “sp”, Square with “sq”, gloves for ‘sq’ and ‘th’ in three among other consonants.
The phonological process for children is different from adults because of the occurrence of consonants and vowels. This analysis looks at Tobbys speech. At 3 years and 11 months, his expected linguistics speech should reveal normative data. In order to discover gaps in his speech, the following diagnosis checks for missing and incomplete pronunciations.
In order to check for any challenges with the phonological processes, there is need to check for error patterns. Substituting sound and consistency is a sign of disorder. For example, in this case, the child says “?melf?nt” instead of “el?f?nt”. Fronting is substituting adult sounds with others. In this case, the child replaces “l” with “m”. Fronting also refers to sounds made at the back of the mind. For example, in the target word bread, the child’s transcription for bread is ‘bed” instead of “bred”. In this case, the consonant ‘r’ is silent. Fronting also has variations namely velar fronting and palatal fronting (Toki, Pange, & Mikropoulos, 2012). The latter implies substitution of sounds with sounds, which emerge from the front of the tongue. For example in target word number 23, the child says “fi:” instead of “θ?i?” when referring to three. On the other hand, palatal fronting involves changing sounds like “sh”,” j”, “cg” and “zh”. An example is the word ‘toothbrush’ in which the child says “t??θb?θ” instead of “t??θb??? “. In this case, the ‘sh’ is replaced with ‘th’. Children experience fronting challenges before the age of 3 years. In the case study, the child is 3 and 11 months, which means there is a possibility of a phonological disorder. This call for learning strategies on rules and sounds fit in or simplified.
Challenges Posed by Learning to Combine Words
Voicing is also evident with the omission of last consonants in a word. This is depletion and hinders children at 3 years. Examples include target word 15, which is a two word, and the child says “thankoo” omitting the “y’ in thank you. Also omitted is‘t’ in “teeth” as the child says ‘ti”
The normal PCC for 3-4 year olds is about 29.5% for the consonant clustering rate (McLeod & Arciuli, 2009). The differences in sound errors comes out from the inability to imitate sound effectively. This exercise looks at the word length and correct consonants for pronunciation challenges. In this case, the child has inability to open the mouth as required. Tobbys history reveals nasal challenges, which could influence pronunciations of pharyngealized consonants such as ‘sh’ (Zellou, 2012). This shortens words. For example in the word, umbrella pronounced as “um-o-beya” which means 2 consonants have proper pronunciation while 3 are wrong. The child has a problem with two word pronunciations such as ‘Thank you” which the child pronounces as “Thankoo”. Challenges could arise from vocal cord problems, brain damage, respiratory or jaw muscle problems (Legg, 2017). Such challenges arise from the inability to complete tasks, lack of concentration and difficulty talking. The child seems inattentive, anxious and slow to use the mind for language.
Strategies employed by the teacher to engage the learner include use of images, interactive learning, and question or answer tactics. Tobby depicts phonological process, learning to talk, coordination of lips and tongue for clear speech. At 3 years, the child is expected to be effective in word combination. Repeated ear infection could have affected Tobbys listening ability. According to development norms or milestones, at this stage, Tobby needs to use more words. This includes the use of two action sentences such as “ I came to school to lean” and two object sentences such as ‘ The elephant was in the room.’Tobby is approaching 4years but his development milestone indicates a level of a 1-2 year old where he is learning to identify names and verbalize. The phonological development for this age should indicate a mastery of consonants b, d, k, f and y. Although this child is good with ‘b’, d, k and f (as seen in duck, bread and giraffe), the child is unable to pronounce words like “y” in thank you. Mcleod & Baker, (2014) highlights relational phonology as critical in evaluation of speech because it brings out the phonological process featuring substitution, Omissions, Distortions, Additions ( SODA). This helps the teacher to target the weak areas through individual therapy.
Analysis of Tobby’s Speech and Pronunciation Challenges
Mcleod & Baker (2014) discusess formal and informal methods. The independent approach occurs when the adult child produces sound in relation to adult targets. In this case, Tobby repeats the teacher’s words effectively. From the audio, the teacher uses repetition and image as strategies to grasp what Tobby says. This approach highlights challenges in language articulation, fluency and any disorders arising from dysarthria or aphasia. Tobbys medical report shows that his hearing is normal. However, there could be a challenge within the pharynx. With normal motor development milestones, Tobby does not exhibit health complications. However, an evaluation of the articulation skills from audio sample is necessary (Zhu, Ozanne, Crosbie, & Dodd, 2002).
The articulation, phonological, motor planning (CAS) method identifies the level of breakdown hence a perfect method for analyzing articulation disorders and motor speech challenges such as dysarthria and cerebral palsy. There is evidence that Tobby has challenges pronouncing “th’ as seen in “three”. The child also substitutes consonants like “w”, “l” ad “r” as seen in Yellow, umbrella and orange respectively. This is an articulation disorder, which affects the norm. It reveals limitation in comprehension and calls for more exercises on sound production. Tommy has tongue problem, which prevent proper pronunciation. Phonological disorders also emerge showing the inability to join two words. An example is in the words “Light house, toothbrush and Thank you”. The phonological challenge is also evident when the child makes unintelligible words like ‘Fiy’ to refer to five and “ti” for teeth. Formal analysis of this could involve a testing process while an informal assessment features a reading process.
A Systematic analysis of how the child uses consonants and clustering reveals a challenge with clustering. An example is the word umbrella, which sounds as “umb-o-beya”. The incorrect combination of words leaves normal patterns and creates poor grammatical rules (Cox, 2008). Tobby has challenges with the combination of ‘th’ in the word three, “ll: in yellow and “sh” in splashing. It is likely that the speech language pathologist would diagnose Tobby with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), articulation disorder and articulation disorders (Lazerson & Lucker, 2003).
The Weiss intelligibility test is also appropriate because it looks at the intelligible words, speech production and spontaneous speech (Weiss, 1982). Among this are complex word such as ‘splashing’,’ light house’ and ‘square ‘which the child finds challenging to pronounce. This is also notable in the audio when the child makes spontaneous responses to the questions asked. This method depends on the actual speech sample of the words. This kind of analysis also considers the prognosis or level of motivation, consistency, associated behavior and severity. Other systems include the Phonological Assessment of Children’s Speech (PACS), Dodd’s Classification and Speech disorders (Grunwell, 1985:Dodd, Holm, Crosbie, & McIntosch, 2006: Shrieberg, Austin, Lewis, McSweeny, & Wilson, 1997).
References
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Zhu, H., Ozanne, A., Crosbie, S., & Dodd, B. (2002). Diagnostic evaluation of articulation and phonology. PSychological Corporation. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43509881_Diagnostic_Evaluation_of_Articulation_and_Phonology_DEAP