SLP 105: Clinical Linguistics and Multilingual Issues

Unit 1: Introduction to Clinical Linguistics; Phonological Acquisition and

Related Disorders

Phonology
Disability

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Ms. Aparna Bency Ann Chacko
1st MSc (Speech)
 CONTENT

A. Introduction

B. Phonological Disorder/ Disability

C. Causes of Phonological Disorder

D. Diagnostic Indicators

E. Differences between PHONETIC and PHONOLOGICAL DISORDER

F. Phonological Disability in Hard of Hearing

G. Phonological Disability in Dysarthria

H. Phonological Disability in Cerebral Palsy

I. Phonological Disability in Downs Syndrome

J. Phonological Disability in Aphasia

K. Phonological Disability in Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

L. References
Introduction
The knowledge of phonemic analysis is important to a speech – language pathologist as the
cases that approach them are multilingual and the language might now always be a known
one. If the SLP knows the phonemes he/she can make the therapy plans so as to teach the
client the less difficult words. So, he/she will teach the phonemes first and then their
allophones. They might face the following situations:
 Where the child substitutes the sound [eg: /l/ for /r/ in /ri:d/]
The kid might not be able to perceive the sound so he fails to produce it or the child
perceives the different sound but produces them in the same manner.
 The child perceives the difference and can articulate /l/ and /r/ but, he may not
produce the sounds correctly in all environments.

Phonological Disability
Developmental Phonological Disorders, also known as phonological disability or
phonological disorders, are a group of language disorders that affect children’s ability to
develop easily understood speech by the time they are four years old, and in some cases, their
ability to learn to read and spell. Therefore, phonological disorders involve a difficulty in
leaning and organizing, all the sounds needed for clear speech, reading and speeling (Bowen
1998).
In the literature they are referred to as: phonomotor disability (Folkins and Bleile, 1990),
syntactic phonological syndrome (Howell and Dean, 1991), phonological disorder (Dean,
Howell, Hill, and Waters, 1990; Fey, 1992; Kamhi, 1992; Stackhouse, 1993), and expressive
phonological impairment (Bird, Bishop and Freeman, 1995).
Dodd (1993) distinguished three distinct types of phonological disorder (excluding
articulation disorders):
1. Delayed phonological acquisition
2. Inconsistent deviant disorder
3. Consistent deviant disorder
He describes that children with delay are those who use normal developmental processes that
are inappropriate for their chronological age and the one with deviance are those whose some
processes which do not occur among the normally developing children.
Grunwell and Russell (1990) also posited at three types:
1. Form: the inventory and contrastive system
2. Function: the variability in the realization of adult contrasts
3. Phonotactics
Characteristics of Children with Disorder Phonology
 It is said that even the normal children use unusual phonological patterns less
frequently, but the children with phonological disorders use unusual patterns more
frequently and less systematically as reported.
 Leonard et al. (1987) tested normally developing children and children with
phonological disorder on words which contained consonants which were produced
correctly by the children mostly (in phonology words), on the words which contained
consonants which were attempted by the child many times but not produced correctly
(attempted words) and on the words which contained consonants to which the child
was exposed for the first time (out of phonology words). The results indicated
 Normally developing children produced unusual patterns more on out of
phonology words, that is, 45% and lesser that is 20.2% on attempted words,
 Children with disordered phonology produced errors on all types of words
with no significant difference.
 Studies have shown that the children with phonological disorder when compared to
the normal children, use sounds which are absent in their native language The
English-speaking children uses ingressive alveolar fricatives as given by Ingram and
Terselic (1983); lateral fricatives by Fey (1985) and alveolar fricatives by Edwards
(1980).
 Failure to use developmentally expected speech sounds that are appropriate for age
and dialect (e.g. errors in sound production, use, representation, or organisation such
as, but not limited to, substitutions of one sound for another [use of /t/ for target /k/
sound] or omissions of sounds such as final consonants].
The difficulties in speech sound production interfere with academic or occupational
achievement or with social communication.
Some children with developmental phonological disorders have other speech and language
difficulties such as immature grammar and syntax, stuttering or word retrieval difficulties.
However, many of them just have a ‘pure’ developmental phonological disorder involving:
 A problem with speech clarity in the preschool years, with no subsequent reading and
spelling problems.
 A problem with speech clarity in the preschool years, and, in early school years,
difficulty learning to read, and difficulties with reading comprehension.
 Speech and reading problems, plus difficulty with spelling
 Speech and spelling problems (no reading difficulties)
 Speech clarity problems in the pre-school years, and difficulties with written
expression in primary school.

Phonologically disabled children will be able to produce lengthy utterances which are
grammatically structured and appropriate to context, but they have problem only in
pronunciation of words.
Cause of Phonological Disorder
The cause of phonological disorder in children is largely unknown. It has been suggested that
this disorder has genetic component due to large proportion of children who have relatives
with some type of similar disorder.
Phonological impairments were more frequent in public school students across all age
groups. Phonological alterations were most frequent between ages 4 -to 6, and more
prevalent in males than females in all but the youngest age group.
The most common phonological processes in typical phonological acquisition were: cluster
reduction; non-lateral liquid deletion in coda; non-lateral liquid substitution in onset; semi-
vocalization of lateral liquids in coda; and unstressed syllable deletion.
In children with phonological disorders, the most common phonological processes were:
lateral and non-lateral liquid substitution in onset position; non-lateral liquid deletion;
fronting of fricatives in onset position; unstressed syllable deletion; semi-vocalization of non-
lateral liquid in coda; and non-lateral liquid deletion in coda position.
Phonological processes were highly prevalent in the present sample, and occurred more often
in boys than in girls.
Ceron, Marizete Ilha; Gubiani, Marileda Barichello; Oliveira, Camila Rosa de;
Gubiani, Marieli Barichello; Keske-Soares, Márcia (2017).

Diagnostic Indicators
Children with phonological disorders use phonological processes differently than normal
developing children. Grunwell (1987) provides the following 5 classifications which serve as
diagnostic indicators:
(i) Persisting Normal Processes: these are normal phonological processes that
remain in a child’s pronunciation patterns long after the age at which they would
be expected to have been supressed.
For example, prevocalic voicing being present after 4 years, though it normally
suppresses by the age of 3.
(ii) Chronological mismatch: refers to the cooccurrence of some of the earliest
normal simplifying processes together with pattern characteristics of later stages
of phonological development.
For example, velar fronting and development of word initial clusters present in the speech
of a 4 year old.
(iii) Systematic sound preference: occurs when one type of consonant (single phonetic
realization) is used for a large range of phonemes. It results in massive reduction
of phonological contrasts and is seen when both normal development processes
and idiosyncratic processes co-occur.
 For example, a child substituting /d/ for s,z,sh,ch and all initial consonant blends
(Weiner,1981)
(iv) Unusual or idiosyncratic processes: It is characterised by patterns thar are
uncommon in the speech of normally developing children or those that are seen in
the speech of individual children with phonological disorder
Some idiosyncratic processes seen in children with phonological disorders are:
 Initial consonant deletion. Eg: ack for back
 Backing of stops. Eg: kap for tap
 Backing of fricatives. Eg: shun for sun
 Glottal replacements. Eg: n for gun
 Denasalizations. Eg: bob for mom
 Fricatives replacing stops. Eg: sin for tin
 Stops replacing glides. Eg: dawn for yawn
 Metathesis. Eg: corol for colour
 Migration. Eg: usb for bus
 Affrication. Eg: shig for dig
 Unusual cluster reduction. Eg: ross for cross
 Unusual substitution process. Eg: rock for flock
 Centralisation of vowels. Eg: bud for bed

(v) Variable use of processes: occurs when more than one simplifying process
routinely operates with the same type of structure, so that the child’s realisation
are variable and unpredictable: /bai/ for pie, /po/ for pour.
This variability is potentially progressive in that it entails the possible
development of target contrast. Variability is abnormal when it is not potentially
progressive. Eg: /leik/ for rake, /wing/ for ring.

Differences between PHONETIC and PHONOLOGICAL DISORDER

Phonetic Disorder Phonological Disorder
Phonetic error Phonemic error
Problems in speech sound production Problems in language specific function of
phonemes
Difficulties with speech sound form Difficulties with phoneme function
Disturbance in relatively peripheral motor Disturbances represent an impairment of
processes that result in speech representation or organisation within a
language system
Do not impact language areas like May impact language areas like
morphology, syntax, and semantics morphology, syntax, and semantics
Phonological Disability in Hard of Hearing Children
 Hudgins (1934) have noted 5 particular aspects of deaf speech:
1. Extremely slow, laboured and excessively breathy speech
2. Prolonged production of vowel, resulting in either distortion or the creation of a new
syllable
3. A tendency to devoice stops in all positions
4. Excessive use of nasality with vowels and consonants
5. Abnormal rhythm across an utterance
Hudgins and Numbers made phonograph recordings of the speech of 192 deaf pupils between
8 and 20 years of age. This resulted in a total of approximately 1200 sentences of 6 to 12
words each.
 A study done by Nazir et al. (2022) reveals that:
Hearing aid amplified children are reported to face deficiencies in vocabulary in 65% and
phonological errors in 89%, while vowel production in hearing impaired nearly resembles
normal hearing (NH) children. However, their consonant producing abilities are weak and
they show better outcome with early amplification before 6 months of age. Biloor et al
reported that in 3 – 4 years old bilinguals, phonological processes occur with the commonest
being fronting followed by cluster reduction (CR), epenthesis, initial consonant deletion
(ICD), affrication, metathesis, and final consonant deletion (FCD). In current study, the
most common process noted in late amplified children was Epenthesis, followed by CR &
FCD and difference with early amplified group was significant for FCD. Epenthesis and CR
are processes which can continue beyond 3 years of age, however presence of FCD and ICD
in the late amplified group shows the negative impact of delay in amplification. Infants with
moderate HL compared to NH infants are delayed as regards consonantal inventory and
development of syllable structures with slow affricate/ fricative development.
Most common substitution process seen in late amplified children in present study was
gliding followed by vocalization, de-affrication, stopping, fronting, backing and
depalatilization in decreasing order of frequency and significant association with timing of
amplification was noted with higher frequency in late amplified group for fronting, gliding
and vocalization. Gliding and vocalization are processes which can continue beyond 3 years
of age hence, understandable, however fronting usually stops by 3 years of age, and late
amplification resulted in continued use of process beyond 3 years.
In current study, late amplified children revealed significant higher frequency compared to
early amplified group for reduplication, labial assimilation, velar assimilation and nasal
assimilation. Both reduplication and assimilation are features which are usually seen up to 3
years of age. However, they had persisted in late amplified group beyond 3 years in current
study.

Phonological Disability in Dysarthria

According to Kent et al. (2001), seven types of dysarthria were identified based on certain
cause. They are as follows:
 Flaccid
 Spastic
 Unilateral upper motor neuron
 Ataxic
 Hypokinetic
 Hyperkinetic
 Mixed
The errors related to pronunciation are divided into two types. They are common distortion
errors and uncommon distortion errors.
COMMON DISTORTION ERRORS
1. Dentalization of voiced /voiceless sibilant fricatives or affricates
2. Derhotacized /r/, /3/, /a/
3. Lateralization of voiced/voiceless sibilant fricatives or affricates
4. Velarized /l/ or /r/
5. Labialized /l/ or /r/
UNCOMMON DISTORTION ERRORS
1. Weak consonant productions
2. Inaccurate consonant and vowel articulation
3. A failure to keep oral and nasal contrasts
4. The challenge of maintaining accurate voicing contrasts

Phonological Disability in Cerebral Palsy

 A study was done by Makuto et al., (n.d)
Phonological impairments were categorised into identifiable patterns that include consonant
deletion, cluster reduction, syllable reduction, fronting, deaffrication and stopping.
Consonant deletion involved a deletion of a consonant in initial, medial or final positions.
In this study consonant deletion occurred mostly in final position of words as compared to
medial and final positions.
Cluster reduction involved a deletion of a segment from a consonant cluster. Reductions
involved, the target consonant cluster being realized as a consonant (for example, /fr/ → [f] in
the word frog which was pronounced as [fog] and /blue/→/b/ as in the word [blue] which
was pronounced as [bu]. Substitutions saw the target consonant cluster being realized as
another totally different consonant or another consonant cluster altogether. (for example,
/thr/→[c]).
In this study syllable reduction involved the deletion of a syllable from a word containing
two or more syllable. This deletion was found to have occurred in the unstressed syllable.
Another error pattern involved dorsal segments being replaced by coronals (fronting)that is
the substitution of sounds in the front of the mouth, usually alveolar, for velar or palatal
sounds.
Deaffrication involved the deletion of a stop component from an affricate leaving only the
continuant aspect. Affected by this impairment were affricatives tʃ and dz examples of words
affected were chair which was pronounced as /shea/ and dz in the word jumping which was
pronounced as /shumping/
Lastly stopping involved the substitution of a fricative or an affricate for a stop consonant.
Phonological Disability in Down Syndrome
Syllable structure phonological processes, such as cluster reduction and final consonant
deletion, appear to be common in children with Down syndrome.
In their preschool and school-age years, children with Down syndrome exhibit phonological
errors as a common feature. Although errors resemble those made by younger typically
developing children (Dodd, 1976; Rosin et al., 1988), inconsistency of errors may be
particularly characteristic of the phonological disorder in Down syndrome (Dodd &
Thompson, 2001).
Furthermore, children with Down syndrome continue to use phonological processes
(systematic sound error and simplification patterns) for longer periods than typically
developing children would do (Bleile & Schwartz, 1984; Dodd, 1976; Roberts et al.,
2005; Smith & Stoel-Gammon, 1983; Stoel-Gammon, 1980).
Based on a standardized test of single word articulation, Roberts and colleagues (2005) found
that boys with Down syndrome produced fewer consonants correctly and more syllable
structure phonological processes (e.g., cluster reduction, final consonant deletion) than
younger typically developing boys of similar nonverbal mental age.

Phonological Disability in Aphasia

In common with earlier studies (e.g. Olsen, Romani and Halloran, 2007) errors were
classified as phonologically related if they shared 50% or more of their phonemes with the
target in any order (e.g. /bɛdru:p/for “bedroom”, /kɒri:/for “holly”). Unrelated errors therefore
shared less than 50% of their phonemes with the target(e.g. /ɒrəp/for “bear”, /fɜ:n/for
“fork”).
Many aphasics produce phonological1 errors in their speech. These errors often involve
phoneme substitution (“octagus” for octopus), phoneme omission (“ottapus” for octopus),
and phoneme addition (“octrapus” for octopus). Such speech errors, as well as those that are
more phonologically distorted (“octragut” for octopus), are called “phonemic” (or “literal”)
paraphasias. More distorted phonological productions are called “neologisms” (“okso”
for octopus). It is difficult to strictly define “phonemic paraphasia” and “neologism,” but a
useful rule of thumb is that the target word of a phonemic paraphasia is typically easy to
identify, while the target word of a neologism is typically difficult to identify.

Phonological Disability in Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

Children with SLI are late in acquiring the segments (consonants and vowels) of the
language. They have difficulty in producing features likes stridents and voicing.
Consonant cluster reduction, liquid gliding, final consonant deletion, and word-initial
weak syllable deletion occur with relatively high frequency in SLI
SLI continue to exhibit certain phonological processes even as adults. Uses unusual patterns-
later developing sounds replaces earlier- developing sounds (eg. [v] for /d/).
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