Speech Sound Disorders

When discussing speech sound disorders, such as articulation delays, it's helpful to highlight what typical speech development looks like as a point of reference. A child should be able to say almost all sounds correctly by age 5. A 3 year-old child should be understood by strangers 75% of the time and by 4-years of age they should be understood by strangers all of the time.

If your child is not meeting these milestones, an evaluation is recommended. The longer a speech sound error persists, the longer it can take to remediate as the incorrect muscle pattern is repeatedly reinforced.

A speech sound disorder is an umbrella term for a communication disorder in which a child has a persistent difficulty producing a speech sound or a combination of speech sounds. At Salt and Sun Speech Therapy, we provide a detailed evaluation and differential diagnosis to correctly diagnose and appropriately treat Speech Sounds Disorders. Some examples include:

Articulation Disorder: Refers to difficulty with the motor aspect of using our mouths to produce a speech sound and often involves substituting one sound for another (/w/ for /r/ as in "wabbit" for "rabbit" ), or a sound distortion such a frontal or lateral lisp.

Phonology Disorder: Refers to difficulty organizing and using speech sounds correctly within words. Children with phonology delays or disorders frequently demonstrate what is referred to as phonological patterns or omissions. For example, a child who presents with the phonological pattern of "fronting" will consistently produce sounds made with the back of the tongue (/k/) with the front of the tongue (/t/); "tea" becomes "key" and this pattern is observed across their speech. The more phonological patterns a child exhibits, the more unintelligible their speech becomes.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS): Refers to a rare speech disorder that is rooted in deficits of motor planning and marked by inconsistent speech errors. The child knows what he or she wants to say, but their brain has difficulty planning and coordinating the oral movements needed to produce the correct speech sounds.