articulation a specific, gradually developing motor skill

that involves mainly peripheral motor processes

involved in the planning and execution

of sequences of overlapping gestures

that result in speech

phoneme

the smallest unit within a language that is able,

when combined with other units,

to establish word meanings and distinguish among them.

phonologythe study of the meaningful units of

sound within a language;

the description of the systems and patterns of phonemes that occur in a

language.

Articulation disorder Phonological disorder

phonetic errors phonemic errors

problems in speech sound production problems in the language-specific functionof phonemes

difficulties with speech sound forms difficulties with phoneme function

disturbances in relatively peripheral disturbances are more central in nature,motor processes that result in speech concerning the phonological level of the

organization of the language system

speech sound production difficulties phoneme difficulties may impact otherdo not typically impact other areas language areas such as morphology, syntaxof language development such as or semanticsmorphology, syntax or semantics

Articulatory phonetics: basic terms

• vowels:– tense = – rounded =

• consonants:– sonorants (semivowels=nasals, liquids, glides)– obstruents (stops, fricatives, affricates) – organ, place, manner, voicing

• monophthong,diphthong (onglide,offglide)

Place-manner-voice

• Voiced

[

• Voiceless[

Place-manner-voice categories:

• Placelabial

dental [alveolar [

postalveolar [ palatal [

velar [glottal [h]

Place-manner-voice

• Mannerstop-plosives:

fricatives: [ affricates: [ nasals: [liquids: [l, r ]

glides: [w, j]

Coarticulation:Assimilation/harmony processes

• Contact assimilation

• remote assimilations

• progressive assimilations

• regressive assimilations

• total assimilations

• partial assimilations

Syllable structure:

• peak = most prominent, acoustically intense

• onset = syllable release

• coda = syllable arrest

Assessing medial positionGoldman Fristoe-2 Test of Articulation:

[d] in “window” = onset of unstressed, open

syllable, preceded by consonant made in

same place of articulation (CVCCV)

in “bathtub” = coda of stressed syllable,

followed by onset of closed syllable (CVCCVC)

[n] in “banana” = onset of stressed, open syllable in a trisyllabic word;reduplicated syllables (CVCVCV)

[l] in “balloons = onset of stressed, closed syllable with bilabial [b] and rounded [] (CVCVCC)

Diacritics

• dentalization

• palatalization

• velarization

• lateralization

• partial devoicing

• partial voicing

• aspiration

Diacritics (continued)

• unaspiration

• unreleased

• syllabic consonant

• labialization

• nonlabialization

• derhotacization

• rounding/unrounding

Diacritics (continued)

• raised

• lowered

• advanced

• retracted

• nasalized

• glottal stop

• flap

Distinctive features

“The distinctive features of an individual phoneme would be those aspects of the process of articulation and their acoustic consequences that serve to contrast one phoneme from another.”

Distinctive features of phonemes

• Major Class features (sonorant, consonantal, vocalic)

• Cavity features (coronal, anterior, distributed, nasal, lateral, high, low, back, round)

• Manner features (continuant, delayed release, tense)

• Source features (heightened subglottal pressure, voicing, stridency)

• Prosodic features

Chomsky & Halle’s Distinctive Features1. vocalic/nonvocalic

2. consonantal/nonconsonantal

3. coronal/noncoronal

4. anterior/nonanterior

5. high/nonhigh

6. back/nonback

7. low/nonlow

8. nasal/nonnasal

9. round/nonround

10. continuant/noncontinuant

11. tense/nontense

12. voice/nonvoice

13. strident/nonstrident

Distinctive features versusorgan, place, voice and manner

• [p] and [b]; voiceless and voiced bilabial stopsreplace

• [t] and [d]; voiceless and voiced coronal alveolar stops

replace

• [f] and [v]; v.l.& v. labiodental fricatives

• [s] and [z]; v.l. & v. coronal alveolar apico-alveolar fricatives;

• [v.l.&v. coronal prepalatal fricatives.;

• [;v.l.& v. apico- dental fricatives.

Distinctive feature versusorgan, place, voice, manner

• [p],[b] = (-)strident (-)continuant

• [t],[d] = (-) strident (-)continuant (+) diffuse

• [f],[v] = (+)strident (+)continuant

• [s],[z] = (+)strident [= (+)strident [s],[z] = (+)continuant [= (+)continuant [=(+)continuant [ =(-) diffuse

Distinctive feature systems focused attention on the components of phonemes rather than the production of phonemes.

Another important aspect of distinctive features is naturalness versus markedness:

• natural = simple to produce, occuring oftene.g., [p]

• marked = dfficult to produce, occurring less often, e.g., [

Phonologically disordered children tend to substitute more unmarked/natural classes for

marked/unnatural classes• Voiceless obstruents for sonorants

• obstruents for sonorants

• stops for fricatives

• fricatives for affricates

• low front vowels for other sounds

• close-tense vowels for open-lax vowels

• anterior consonants for other consonants

• simple consonants for complex consonants

Generative phonologyFive features of phonemes:

• Major class features: is it a consonant, vowel or inbetween?

• Cavity features:where is it produced?

• Manner of articulation features: how is it produced?

• Source featureswhat’s the energy source?

• Prosodic features

Phonological rules for pluralizing

• Add underlying representation /z/e.g.,

• maintain same voice as root word endinge.g.,

• if underlying representation and root word ending are made in the same place of articulation, add a schwa.

Notation for phonological rules: becomes or “can be rewritten as”

• / “in the environment of”

• — indicates location of changed segment

• #—indicates the beginning of a word

• —#indicates the end or final word position

• V—V is intervocallic word position

• Ø indicates the deletion of a segment

• C indicates a consonant segment

• CC(C) indicates two or three consonants

/s or s;or z: in distinctive feature “talk” =

+cons +cons

+cor +cor

+ant +ant

+cons -cons

+strid -strid

(where #—and —#)

Natural phonology

Patterns of speech are governed by an innate, universal set of

phonological processes.

“A phonological processis a mental operation that applies in

speech to substitute for a class of sounds or sound sequences presenting

a common difficulty to the speech capacity of the individual.”

Stampe (1979)

• Phonological processes are innate and universal;

• Phonological processes are easier for the child to produce and are substituted for sounds, sound classes, or sound sequences when the child’s motor capacities do not yet allow their norm realization;

• All children begin with innate speech patterns but must progress to the language specific system that characterizes their native language.

• Phonological processes are used to constantly revise existing differences between the innate patterns and the adults norm production;

• Children go through developmental steps until the goal of adult phonology is reached;

• Disordered phonology is seen as an inability to realize this “natural” process of goal- oriented adaptive change.

Mechanisms for revisions, as children work toward adult norms:

• Limitation e.g., first stops for all fricatives and then through limitation, stops for all sibilants

• Orderingrandom substitutions become orderly

• Suppressionprocess(es) no longer used

Syllable Structure Processes

• Cluster reduction

• Reduplicationtotal or partial

• Weak syllable deletion

• Final consonant deletion

• Epenthesis

Substitution Processes

• Consonant cluster substitution

• fronting• labialization• alveolarization• stopping• affrication• deaffrication

• Denasalization• gliding of

liquids/fricatives• vowelization• derhotacization• voicing• devoicing

Assimilation Processes (Harmony)

• Labial assimilation

• Velar assimilation

• Nasal assimilation

• Liquid assimilation

Use of phonological processes by phonologically impaired children

• Persisting normal processes

• chronological mismatch

• systematic sound preferences

• unusual or idiosyncratic processes

• variable use of processes

Some segments (or groups of segments) may have a controlling influence on others; there may be a hierarchical

arrangement between segments and other linguistic units.

Non-linear or multilinear phonologies are a group of phonological theories that study the

interaction between various levels of phonological and linguistic control

Principles of movement development applied to oral mechanism

• Development is a continuous process.

• The sequence remains the same, although the rate may vary.

• Movements develop from head to tail.

• Gross motor precedes fine motor control.

• Stability allows for advanced and accurate mobility.

Principles of movement development applied to oral mechanism (cont.)

• Movements develop from proximal to distal

• Movements develop from medial to lateral

• Abnormal structure leads to adjustment in motor function

• Abnormal tone/movement in one part of the body leads to adjustment in motor function somewhere else.

Principles of movement development applied to oral mechanism (cont.)

• Early learning is a sensorimotor experience

• Complex motor activities are monitored through continuous sensory feedback.

• Rapid, precise sequential movements are dependent upon the ability to perform discrete movements.

• Movement patterns are based upon economy of movement.

Prelinguistic stages

• Birth - two months: Reflexive/vegetative (quasi-resonant nuclei)

• 2 - 4 mo: cooing and laughter

• 4 - 6 mo: vocal play

• 6 months: canonical babblingreduplicated and nonreduplicated

• 10 months: jargon/variegated babbling

Predictive value of babbling:

• Less language growth is seen in children with more vocoid babble compared to those with more contoid babble;

• greater language growth is related to greater babble complexity

• greater language growth is related to increased diversity of concoid productions

• Vocables

• Phonetically consistent forms (PCFs)

• Proto-words

• Quasi-words

THE FIRST WORD

an entity of relatively stable phonetic form that is produced consistently by the child in a particular

context and is recognizably related to the adultlike word form of a particular language.

Acquisition of vowel sounds

• first 50 word stage:[

• preschool stagereached by age 2: ,u, o, reached by age 3: reached by age 4: [

• consensus is that vowels are in by 3-4 years

Acquisition of consonants during the first 50 word stage:

Best guess:

Developmental sequence of vowels

• Group 1: early developing vowels are[

• Group 2: intermediate vowels are

• Group 3: later developing vowels are

Potentially intrusive variables:

• Isolated words or connected speech

• length of words

• stress patterns

• word familiarity

• number of words tested for each position

• effects of sounds in words - harmony

• conditions of data collection

Summary of Vihman & Greenlee (1987)Subjects were ten three-year olds:

• Stops and fricatives by all subjects

• >50% substituted [r] and [l] and used palatal fronting ( [

• 2/10 demonstrated their own particular style of phonological acquisition

• 73% judged as unintelligible, with range of 54-80%

• the more complex the syntax, the worse the articulation

Development of consonant clusters Age Initial Final4 pl, bl, kl, gl mp, mpt, mps, k

pr, br, tr, dr, kr lp, lt, rm, rt, rk tw, kw pt, ks, sm, sn, sp, st, sk ft

5 gr, fl, fr, str lb, lfrd, rf, rn

6 skw lkrb, rg, r

7 spl, spr, skr sk, st, kst

sl, sw l8 kt, sp

Processes disappearing by age 3:

• Weak syllable deletion

• Final consonant deletion

• Doubling (repetition of a word, [gogo]

• Reduplication

• Diminutization (use of diminutives)

• Velar fronting

• Consonant assimilation

• Prevocalic voicing

Processes persisting after age 3:

• Cluster reduction

• Epenthesis

• Gliding

• Vocalization, e.g., [pipo] for “people”

• Stopping

• Depalatalization

• Final devoicing

Haelsig and Madison (1986)50 three, four and five year olds

• 3-3 ½ used Cluster Reduction, Weak Syllable Deletion, Glottal Replacement, Labial Assimilation, Gliding Liquids

• 4 ½ -5 used: Weak Syllable Deletion, Cluster Reduction

• Rarely used by any age: Velar Assimilation, PreVocalic Voicing, Gliding of Fricatives, Affrication, Denasalization

• Greatest reduction in processes occurred between 3 and 4

• Deletion of final consonants, stopping, fronting and gliding of liquids reduced by 50% between 3 and 4.

Correlational factors describing learning to read and learning to speak:

• Poor readers have difficulty analyzing words into syllables and sounds

• poor readers have poor memories of phonologically coded material

• poor readers have difficulty in repetition tasks

• children with speech/language problems have poor phonological awareness and, if older than 5.6, reading.

Assessment = appraisal + diagnosis

• Case history

• Parent interview

• School/medical records

• Evaluation by the clinician

Contextual Test of ArticulationAase, et al., 2000

• not an initial test • /s/, /l/, /k/, /r/, , 15 two-consonant clusters• /s/ and /l/ tested 36 times each;• /k/ tested 39 times;• /tested 9 times• /sm, sn, sl, st, sk, sp, pl, bl, kl, kr, tr, dr, br,

mp, nt/

Index of severity for children with emerging language skills

• Number of different consonants in 10 minute sample:

• 18-24 months: norm = 14 small express. vocab = 6

• 24-36 months: norm = 18 small express.vocab = 10

• Syllable structure level

• use 20-50 vocalizations

• level one (p.150)

• level two

• level three

• norm at 24 mo = 2.2

• small express.vocab = 1.7

Word prevocalic nucleus inter/post nucleus inter/post Int. Prod. Int. prod. Int. prod. Int. prod. Int. prod.

house h h

stove st d ou ou v

finger f b

jump

church t

Hallmarks of phonetic disorders:

• Preservation of phonemic contrastseven subtle contrasts may signal phonetic (not phonemic) difficulties

• Peripheral, motor-based problemslook for consistent pattern or

explanations of inconsistencieslack of cognitive/linguistic problemslack of perceptually based problems

Phonological processes with vowels:

• Vowel backing and vowel fronting• centralization and decentralization• vowel raising and vowel lowering• diphthongization and monophthongization• vowel harmony:

complete harmonytenseness harmony

height vowel harmony

Variables contributing to severity ratings:Connolly (1986)

• Loss of phonemic contrasts • loss of contrasts in specific contexts• # of meaning contrasts lost• difference between target and realization• consistency of target-realization relationship• frequency of abnormality• listener familiarity with client’s speech• communicative context

Determining intelligibility (Shipley, 1992)

• The number of sound errors• the type of sound errors• inconsistency of errors• vowel errors• rate of speech• atypical prosody• length and linguistic complexity of words used• insufficient vocal intensity• dysfluencies

Determining intelligibility (continued)

• Lack of gestures or paralinguistic cues• the testing environment• the client’s anxiety• the client’s lack of familiarity with stimulus materials• the client’s level of fatigue• the clinician’s ability to understand “less intelligible

speech• the clinician’s familiarity with the client and the context

Considerations before starting...

• sounds that are functional for the child;• sounds that are stimulable;• sounds that occur in key words/contexts;• sounds that are more visible;• sounds that occur more frequently;• sounds that affect intelligibility the most; • sounds least affected by physical deviations;

…more considerations...

• sounds inconsistently mispronounced;

• sounds that are acquired earlier;

• sounds that are part of child’s inventory;

• sounds that may generalize to others (see next slide);

• exemplars that are part of a rule pattern, e.g., P-V-M, Distinctive features, Phonoloigcal processes

Edwards (1983)Principles for selection of target sounds

•Choose target sounds that are in the child’s phonetic repertoire

•Choose sounds for which the child is stimulable.•Choose sounds that should improve intelligibility•Choose frequently occurring sounds•Choose sounds that are acquired early•Choose high-value sounds•Choose sounds that should be relatively easy to produce

Weiss, Gordon and Lillywhite (1987)Select the error phoneme that:•is the earliest to develop•is the most stimulable•is produced correctly in a key word•occurs most frequently in speech•is most consistent•is visible•has resulted in criticism •the client most desires to correct•is least likely to be affected by physical deviations•is the same for a group of clients

Hegde and Davis (1995)Guidelines for selection of potential target behaviors:

• select behaviors that will make an immediate and socially significant difference (improves intelligibility the most);• select the most useful behaviors that may be produced and reinforced at home and in other natural settings (easily understood and reinforced by family);• select behaviors that help expand communicative skills; practice words should be meaningful and appropriate.4. select behaviors that are linguistically and culturally appropriate for the individual client; practice words and materials, suggested follow-up activities must be appropriate.

Predictions regarding generalization(Elbert and Gierut, 1986)

• teaching one members of a cognate sounds pair will result in the use of the other sound in the pair;

• teaching one allophone will result in the production of other related allophones;

• teaching a distinctive feature in the context of one sound will result in the use of that feature in other untreated sounds;

• teaching sounds in final position of morphemes will result in more accurate production of the sounds in inflected intervocalic contexts;

Predictions (continued)

• teaching stops in word-final position will lead to more accurate production in word-initial position;

• teaching fricatives in word-initial position will result in more accurate production of fricatives in word-final position;

• teaching fricatives will result in more accurate production of stops;

• teaching voiced obstruents (stops, fricatives, affricates) will result in accurate production of voiceless obstruents;

more predictions about generalization

• teaching sounds that are stimulable results in more accurate production than teaching sounds that are not stimulable;

• sounds that are phonologically “known” will be produced more accurately than sounds that are phonologically “unknown;”

• teaching sounds of which a child has least phonological knowledge will result in changes across untreated aspects of the sound system.

Traditional Approach

Sensory-Perceptual (ear) Training:

identification, isolation, stimulation, discrimination

Production Training – Sound Establishment

Production Training – Sound Stabilization

isolation, nonsense syllable, words, phrases, sentences, conversation

Transfer and Carryover

Maintenance

Problems with individual sounds

When are “oro-motor” exercises appropriate?

McDonald’s Sensori-Motor Approach

I. Heighten child’s responsiveness to the patterns of auditory, proprioceptive and tactile sensations associated with the overlapping ballistic movements of articulation

II. Reinforce the child’s correct articulation of his error sound

III. Facilitate the correct articulation of the error sound in systematically varied phonetic contexts.

I. Heighten awareness….

a)auditory stimuli for imitation and description

b) exercises for overlapping movements

c) ear training

d) simple to complex

e) listen, feel, hear

f) practice with bisyllables

g) practice with trisyllables

II.Reinforce correct articulation of error sound

• select a sound for reinforcement

• select a context in which error sound is correctly articulated

slow motion speech, alter stress, etc.

• practice in short sentences

III. Facilitate correct articulation...

• change the vowel following it

• use other words ending in target + vowel; change the vowel preceding target

• vary the stress

• practice in sentences

• if not continuant: slow motion speech/arrested production

• practice with varied stress

Unique features of phonological therapy

• Works on groups or classes of sounds, not one sound

• Aim is to establish phonological contrasts which have been neutralized

• Works in a naturalistic context

Edwards (1983)Principles for selection of target processes

• Choose processes that result in early success or that would be relatively easy to remediate. For example, select processes that occur only in certain phonetic environments; or processes that affect sounds that are within the child’s phonetic inventory; or select processes that affect sounds for which the child is stimulable.• Choose processes that are crucial for the child, i.e., those that draw considerable attention to the child’s speech (e.g., velarization, lateralization, frication of stops, glottal replacement).• Choose early processes or processes that affect early sounds (e.g., gliding of stops).4. Choose processes that interact, i.e., involve more than one rule (e.g., stopping of fricatives in final word position, which impacts plurals, possessives, 3rd person singular.)

Distinctive feature therapy

• Select the target• select a sound pair contrasting this binary

featureone sound has to contain the feature

and the other must not;one sound is typically in the child’s inventory and one is not

• earlier developing sounds have priority

Cycles Approach(Hodson and Paden (1983,1991)

• designed for severely unintelligible children• uses auditory, tectile, visual stimulation cues to

facilitate awareness of targets• a cycle is “a period of time during which all

phonological patterns in need of remediation are facilitated in succession…

• the time period required for the child to successively focus for 2 to 6 hr on each of his or her basic deficient patterns.”

Cycles approach (continued)Selection of target patterns

• Administer APP-R or HAPP-3• determine which phonological patterns are seen at

least 40% of the time• determine which one is most stimulable, next most

stimulable, etc. This determines hierarchy of tx.• Primary target patterns or phonemes:

early developing phonological patternsposterior/anterior contrasts

/s/ clustersliquids

Cycles continued

• Secondary target patternsvoicing contrasts vowel contrasts singleton stridents consonant clusters residual context-related processes (e.g., assimilation)

• Advanced targets multisyllabic wordscomplex consonant sequences

• Inappropriate primary targetsvoiced-final obstruents final //weak-syllable deletion “th” phonemes

Cycles continued:structure of remediation cycles

• Each phoneme exemplar within a target patterns should be trained for approx 60 min per cycle before shifting to the next phoneme in that pattern; one 60-min session or two 30 min session or three 20-min session.

• Stimulation should be provided for two or more target phonemes within a pattern before changing to the next target pattern = two hours

• only one phonological pattern should be targeted during any one session

• a cycle is complete when all targets have been taught

• a second cycle is initiated

• 3-6 cycles (30-40 hrs), 40-60 min per week, usually required for a child to become intelligible

Cycles continued:Instructional sequence for remediation sessions

1. Review previous session: previous week’s production practice word cards are reviewed

2. Auditory bombardment: slight amplification, two minutes;

child only listens to 12 words, perhaps twice

3. Target word cards: child draws, colors or pastes pictures of 3-5 target words on large index cards,with printed word.

4. Production practice: game based repetition; practice includes auditory, tactile, visual stimulation at word level;

5. Stimulability probing: next session’s potential targets are probed.

6. Auditory bombardment - same as #2

7. Home program- read words to child;child imitates; 1/day.

Minimal opposition contrast therapy

• Select two sounds with as many articulatory similarities as possible;

• earlier sounds have priority;

• substitutions with greater impact on intelligibility have priority

• stimulable sounds have priority

Maximal opposition therapy

• Choose sounds that are productionally very different in terms of P-M-V or distinctive features

• sounds should not be in inventory and should be maximally different

• discrimination is not trained - only imitation and spontaneous production

Metaphon therapy

• Phase Oneconcept levelsound levelphoneme levelword level

• Phase Twotake turns in producing minimal pair words

Child with an emerging phonological system

• Teach words that begin with sounds in inventory• select words with syllable shapes that child uses

and expand to new shapes• use normal developmental sequence of consonants

as a guide• introduce new consonants in a babbling activity• introduction new words• vary their grammatical category• reinforce all productions, even approximations

Cognitive learning as basis for phonological intervention

In contrast to traditional modes of articulation therapy, the goal of therapy from a phonological perspective is not production of target sounds, but instead involves a conceptualization or under-standing of the system or rules and regulations underlying American English phonology…once the child understands the rule-bound contrast between his production and the correct production, it will be easy to facilitate improvement.

Underlying principles:

• Emphasis is not the sound, but the rule

• rule is always taught in context of contrast

• no correct/incorrect value judgements

• no instructions about phonetic placement

• avoid direct imitation

• work on one rule at a time

• deemphasize auditory discrimination

Use of imagery

• Stopping of fricatives:running vs. dripping; popping vs. blowing

• fronting of velars:front vs. back; tippy vs. throaty

• deletion of final consonants:open vs. closed; tail vs. no tail

• cluster reduction:friendly vs. lonely

THERAPY REGIMEN

• STEP 1 - semantic identification

• STEP 2 - production in nonsense syllables

• STEP 3 - semantic ID in words

• STEP 4 - production in words

• STEP 5 - semantic ID in phrases

• STEP 6 - production in phrases

• STEP 7 - production in conversation

Priorities for intervention:

• Syllable structures rules first (DFC.WSD)

• assimilation rules

• manner rules (SF, gliding of liquids)

• placement rules (FV, backing of alveolars)

• late disappearing rules (CR, gliding of /r/,stopping of “th”)

• voicing rules

Assorted issues:

• Age to begin: data on individual sounds does not apply. Not enough data

• Well-suited for group work

• Exclude parents

• Single out a sound for state/school data

• Number of errors is insignificant

• Can be used with adults, especially FAR

Assorted issues, continued

• To cycle or not to cycle

• choose your first client carefully

• bypass the child’s learned phonological helplessness

• avoid wasting time on unsuccessful activities

• believe that the child isn’t producing, rather than can’t produce, some sounds.