Perception of Speech Sounds in School-Aged Children with Speech Sound Disorders

Abstract

Children with speech sound disorders may perceive speech differently than children with typical speech development. The nature of these speech differences is reviewed with an emphasis on assessing phoneme-specific perception for speech sounds that are produced in error. Category goodness judgment, or the ability to judge accurate and inaccurate tokens of speech sounds, plays an important role in phonological development. The software Speech Assessment and Interactive Learning System (Rvachew, 1994), which has been effectively used to assess preschoolers’ ability to perform goodness judgments, is explored for school-age children with residual speech errors (RSE). However, data suggest that this particular task may not be sensitive to perceptual differences in school-age children. The need for the development of clinical tools for assessment of speech perception in school-age children with RSE is highlighted, and clinical suggestions are provided.

Perception-production relations in later development of American English rhotics

“…The present findings suggest that some of the normal variation in children's production of rhotics can be attributed to perceptual rather than articulatory differences. This supports the hypothesis, suggested in previous research (e.g., [ 47 , 48 ]) that at least some children with rhotic misarticulation have a core deficit in their auditory-perceptual specification of the target for /ɹ/. Further research should collect fine-grained perceptual measures from children, adolescents, and adults who present with derhotacized production of /ɹ/.…”

“…If perceptual limitations are found to play a role (as suggested by [ 47 ]), a modified approach to intervention may be indicated. Recent work has specifically highlighted the clinical need for tools that can provide a fine-grained measure of rhotic perception in this population [ 48 ].…”

Motor‐based treatment with and without ultrasound feedback for residual speech‐sound errors

“…Moreover, this participant had age-appropriate vocabulary and expressive language but relatively poor phonological processing skills (CTOPP-2 standard score 84, SAILS 86%, Nonword Repetition percent phonemes correct 69%, see Table 1). It is possible that children with this profile might need treatment that is aimed at improving awareness and perception of speech sounds with a focus on detecting phonetically acceptable and unacceptable versions of the target sound (Preston et al, 2015a); similar profiles were observed in children with childhood apraxia of speech who failed to show signs of acquisition and/or generalization with a PML+US approach (Preston et al, 2015b). Therefore, factors such as stimulability and phonological processing skills may interact with treatment condition.…”

“…Several measures were used to provide descriptive information on phonological processing, as this domain may be related to RSSEs in some children (e.g., Preston et al, 2015a). Phonological awareness was evaluated using the Elision, Phoneme Blending, and Phoneme Isolation subtests of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing-2, which can be combined to derive a Phonological Awareness Composite score (Wagner et al, 2013).…”

“…Common articulatory correlates of distorted /ɹ/ that may be visible with sagittal ultrasound views include a constriction with the tongue dorsum in the velar region, a low tongue tip/blade, and a lack of posterior movement of the tongue root (e.g., Adler-Bock et al, 2007; Preston et al, 2015); in coronal views, distorted productions of /ɹ/ may lack elevation of the sides of the tongue. Therefore, cueing with an ultrasound may include instructions to elevate the anterior tongue, lower the dorsum, retract the root, and raise the sides of the tongue.…”