Now that we have established the difference between speech and language, let’s take a deeper look at speech sound disorders. A speech sound disorder is an umbrella term that includes any difficulty with the perception, motor production, or phonological representation of speech sounds. Speech sound disorders can be functional (i.e., no known cause) or organic (i.e., developmental or acquired.)
Functional speech sound disorders refer to a deficit in the motor production of speech and/or the linguistic pattern of speech. You will hear these referred to as articulation and phonological disorders. Articulation disorders consist of distortions/substitutions of speech sounds (e.g., if a child has a lisp.) Phonological disorders consist of predictable rule-based errors that affect more than one sound (e.g., when a child says wed for red, tar for car, sare for share.) Organic speech sound disorders refer to motor/neurological disorders (e.g., Childhood Apraxia of Speech), structural abnormalities (e.g., cleft lip and palate), or sensory disorders.
When should parents seek a speech sound evaluation?
If your child is making frequent distortions, omissions, substitutions, or additions of speech sounds. Certain speech sounds will be mastered at different ages, but typically children are fully intelligible by age 5. If you have difficulty understanding your child or child is having difficulty effectively communicating with family and friends, it may be time to seek an evaluation to rule out a speech sound disorder.
There is one important point to highlight when discussing speech sound disorders and that is different dialects. Not every speech sound difference indicates a disorder, but rather, it may be a feature of a child’s cultural dialect. Dialectal rules will include all aspects of language from speech sounds, to grammar, to social expectations. It is important for every Speech-Language Pathologist to be aware of cultural dialects and to not make the assumption that dialectal variations always indicate a speech sound disorder.
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