Table of contents:
- Criteria for the diagnosis of Phonological Disorder
- Eitological classification - Evolutionary dyslalia
- Etiology of functional dyslalia
- Symptoms of syntactic phonological disorder
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Phonological disorder is a type of speech and sound disorder. Speech and sound disorders are the inability to form the sounds of words correctly. Speech and speech disorders also include articulation disorders, disfluency, and voice disorders.
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- Eitological classification - Evolutionary dyslalia
- Etiology of functional dyslalia
- Symptoms of syntactic phonological disorder
Criteria for the diagnosis of Phonological Disorder
Inability to use the sounds of speech that are developmentally expected and specific to the age and language of the subject (eg, errors in the production, use, representation or organization of sounds such as substitutions of one sound for another (use of sound / t / instead of / k / or omissions of sounds such as final consonants).
Impairments in the production of speech sounds interfere with academic or work performance, or social communication.
If there is mental retardation, a sensory or motor speech deficit, or environmental deprivation, the speech deficits exceed those usually associated with these problems.
Coding note. If there is a sensory or motor speech deficit or neurological disease, they will be coded on Axis III.
Disorder in the articulation of phonemes due to functional alterations of the peripheral organs of speech (lips, tongue, soft palate). It is an inability to correctly pronounce or form certain phonemes or groups of phonemes.
Dyslalia can affect any consonant or vowel, but there is usually a greater incidence of the problem in certain sounds; in some cases because they require greater agility and precision of movements, as happens with the / r /; on other occasions because the point of articulation is not visible and it can be made more difficult to imitate, such as / k /, and sometimes because there are sounds, such as / s /, in which there is a greater tendency to deform articulatory positions of the tongue.
Dyslalia is one of the language abnormalities that occurs most frequently in schools, especially in infant and first cycle primary school students. Also within the language alterations it is among those with a more favorable prognosis. However, if it is not subjected to an adequate early treatment, it can have very negative consequences, due to the influence it exerts on the child's personality, his communication capacity and his social adaptation, as well as his school performance. For the denomination of the different dislalias, according to the affected phoneme, a terminology derived from the Greek name of the phoneme in question is used, with the ending "tismo" or "schism". So we will talk about:
- Rotacism: the non-articulation of the phoneme / r /.
- Lisp: pronunciation of / s / by / z /.
- Seseo: pronunciation of / z / by / s /.
- Sigmatism: the non-articulation of the phoneme / s /.
- Jotacism: the non-articulation of the phoneme / x /.
- Mitacism: the non-articulation of the phoneme / m /.
- Lambdacism: the non-articulation of the phoneme / l /.
- Numation: the non-articulation of the phoneme / n /.
- Nuñación: the non-articulation of the phoneme / ñ /.
- Kappacism: the non-articulation of the phoneme / k /.
- Gammacism: the non-articulation of the / g / phoneme.
- Ficism: the non-articulation of the / f / phoneme.
- Chuitismo: the non-articulation of the phoneme / ch /.
- Piscism: the non-articulation of the phoneme / p /.
- Tetacism: the non-articulation of the phoneme / t /.
- Yeismo: the non-articulation of the phoneme / ll /.
- Chionism: substitution of / rr / for / l /.
- Checheo: substitution of / s / for / ch /.
Eitological classification - Evolutionary dyslalia
It is that phase of child language development in which the child is not capable of repeating, by imitation, the words he hears, of forming the correct acoustic-articulatory stereotypes. Within a normal evolution in the maturity of the child, these difficulties are overcome, and only if they persist after four or five years are they considered pathological.
As a guide, we will say that a child when he begins schooling, at three years of age, must have intelligible speech, even if errors appear; At four years old, some difficulties with the symphons and the / r / are still considered normal; and over five years the entire Spanish phonetic picture must be acquired.
Functional dyslalia
Joint disorder due to a malfunction of the articulatory organs. Within them we distinguish:
- Phonetic disorders: production disturbances. The difficulty is basically centered on the motor, articulatory aspect, that is, in principle, there are no confusion of perception and auditory discrimination. They are children with stable errors, who always make the same mistake when they make the problem sound or sounds. Difficulty appears equally in repetition as in spontaneous language.
- Phonological disorders: the alteration occurs at the perceptual and organizational level, that is, in the processes of auditory discrimination, affecting the mechanisms of conceptualization of sounds and the relationship between signifier and signified.
Oral expression is deficient and, depending on the severity of the disorder, it can be practically unintelligible.
Errors are often fluctuating. Usually it can produce isolated sounds well, but the pronunciation of the word is often altered. A more exhaustive analysis of the possible causes that can trigger the appearance of functional dyslalia is included in section 3.
Audiogenic dyslalia
Joint alteration caused by poor hearing. Voice and rhythm alterations occur, which will modify the normal cadence of speech. In many cases, these symptoms are the warning signs of hidden deafness.
Organic dyslalia
Joint disorder motivated by organic alterations. It can refer to lesions of the nervous system that affect language (dysarthria), or anatomical abnormalities or malformations of the organs that intervene in speech (dysglossia).
Etiology of functional dyslalia
The cause is not usually unique, but a combination of a few factors that affect the child. It is usually due to an immaturity of the subject that prevents the proper functioning of the organs involved in the articulation of language. The most common causes from highest to lowest frequency are:
Poor motor ability
- There is a direct relationship between the degree of motor delay and the degree of speech delay. The defects disappear as you acquire greater skill in fine motor skills. The treatment will be focused not only in order to teach to articulate, but to develop the entire psychomotor aspect of the subject, educating all the movements, even if they are not immediately used in the articulation of the word, and organizing their body scheme.
Breathing difficulties
Because of the relationship that respiratory function has with the performance of the act of phonation and articulation of language. The difficulties or anomalies in this function may be partly altering the pronunciation of the word and creating distortions in the sounds due to an anomalous exit of the speech air, mainly in the fricative phonemes.
Difficulties in space-time perception
The child must be able to perceive the movements involved in the sounds and grasp the nuances that distinguish them. If this fails, perceptual capacity remains to be developed. Therefore, it is very important to promote good language development to work on the perceptual aspect.
Lack of listening comprehension or discrimination
- Together with poor motor ability, it constitutes one of the main causes of functional dyslalias, especially those in which the phonological disorder stands out. There are children who hear well, analyze or integrate the correct phonemes they hear poorly, having difficulties in acoustic discrimination of phonemes with an inability to differentiate one from another.
- Auditory and rhythmic education will be a means to achieve perfect speech.
Psychological factors
Any affective disorder (lack of affection, family maladjustment, jealousy, a little brother.) Can affect the child's language causing it to remain fixed in previous stages, preventing a normal evolution in its development. In these cases, the emotional need to communicate, which is a basic element for the development of speech in the child, is missing or disturbed.
Environmental factors
The environment in which a child develops, together with his personal capacities, will determine his development and maturation. The environmental situations that can most negatively influence poor linguistic development are: lack of a family environment (reception centers…), low cultural level (fluency in vocabulary, expression, way of articulation), poorly integrated bilingualism, overprotection, imbalance or family disunity, etc.
Hereditary factors
There may be a predisposition to articulatory disorder that will be reinforced by the imitation of the mistakes that family members make when speaking
Intellectual factors
Intellectual deficiency presents as a symptom, on many occasions, an alteration in language with difficulties for its articulation. Dyslalia will be treated equally but without losing sight of the fact that it appears framed within more complex problems and that the possibilities of re-education will be conditioned by the capacity of the subject.
Symptoms of syntactic phonological disorder
The language of a dyslalic child, if it is very affected when the difficulty extends to many phonemes, can become unintelligible, due to the continuous verbal disfigurements that it uses, as occurs in multiple dyslalias. The most frequent errors that we find in a dyslalic child are:
Substitution
- Articulation error in which one sound is replaced by another. The student is unable to pronounce a specific articulation, and instead, utters another that is easier and more affordable. For example, it says "can" instead of "rat."
- This substitution error can also occur due to difficulty in perception or auditory discrimination. In these cases, the child perceives the phoneme, not correctly, but as he emits it when it is replaced by another. For example, it says "Jueba" instead of "Play".
Distortion
- We speak of distorted sound when it is given in an incorrect or deformed way, being able to approximate more or less to the corresponding articulation. That is, when not being a replacement, it does not emit the sound correctly.
- The distortions are usually very personal, being very difficult to transcribe them into written language. They are generally due to an imperfect position of the articulation organs, or to the improper way of exit of the speaking air. For example, it says "thistle" instead of "car."
- Distortion along with substitution are the most frequent errors.
Omission
- The child omits the phoneme that he cannot pronounce. Sometimes the omission affects only the consonant, for example, it says "apato" instead of "shoe". But the omission of the complete syllable that contains said consonant is also usually present, for example, it says "lida" instead of "exit". In symphons or consonant groups in which two consonants must be articulated in a row, such as "bra", "cla", etc., the omission of the liquid consonant is very frequent when there is difficulty in articulation.
Addition
- It consists of inserting next to the sound that cannot be articulated, another that does not correspond to the word. For example, it says "balance" instead of "white", "teres" instead of "three".
Investment
- It consists of changing the order of the sounds. For example, it says "cocholate" instead of "chocolate."
In more detail, Laura Bosch (1982) describes the different simplification processes involved in children's speech. Substitute processes:
- Frontalization: substitution of a velar, / x / or / g /, by a previous consonant. / boron / for / cap /
- Posteriorization: substitution of previous consonants for velars. / Hunt / for / cup /
- Loss of loudness. It generally affects the groups of nasal consonant + voiced stop. / bufanta / for / scarf /
- Fricatization of stops. In general, the place of articulation is not altered. / jorro / by / cap /
- Consonantization of semivowels: / i / and / u / in diphthongs become consonants. / pegne / by / comb / / artubus / by / bus /
- Occlusivization of fricatives: implies the loss of the friction characteristic. / plecha / by / arrow /
- Loss of africation: the affricate loses the initial occlusion and becomes a fricative. / bag / for / jacket /
- Protrusion of the tongue or lisp (although it may affect consonants other than / s /. / Bolzo / por / bag /
- Replacement of non-strident interdental fricatives by strident anterior fricatives: / f / y / s / by / z / y / d /. / tafa / for / cup / / sielo / for / sky /
- Aspiration of / s / before a stop. (It can be dialect).
- Palatalization of fricatives. / bag / per / bag /
- Voicing of voiceless fricatives. (We must bear in mind that in Spanish there is no voiced fricative with phonemic value). / vwego / by / fwego /
- Semiconsonantization of liquids: any consonant from the group of liquids can be replaced by / j / or / w /. / wojo / by / red /
- Absence of lateralization: / d / o / r / por por / l /. / dapiz / by / pencil /
- Vibrating liquid lateralization. / tambol / by / drum /
- Absence of simple vibrating. / each / per / face /
- Absence of multiple vibrating. / goro / or / goro / by / cap /
- Vibrant posteriorization: the vibration is uvular and is more frequent in substitution of a multiple vibrating. / Red / by / red /
- Conversion of the voiced linguodental / d / into liquid. / espara / or / espala / by / sword /
Assimilatory processes
- Velar assimilations. / gojo / by / red /
- Alveolar assimilations. / liblo / per / book /
- Lip assimilations. / silly / by / balloon / plus process of simplification of the consonant group.
- Nasal assimilations. / tambon / by / drum /
- Palatal assimilations. / SeSa / by / arrow / more loss of africation.
- Interdental assimilations. / zeza / by / arrow / more protrusion of the tongue.
- Dental assimilations. / crystal / by / crystal /
- Denasalization of a nasal near a non-nasal consonant. / poka / by / fly / further simplification of the consonant group
Processes related to syllabic structure
- Omission of final consonants. / lapi / by / pencil /
- Omission of initial consonants. / ufanda / by / scarf /
- Omission of initial unstressed syllables. / fanda / by / scarf /
- Reduction of diphthongs to a single element. / dente / by / tooth /
- Simplification of consonant groups. / pacha / by / iron /
- Metathesis or inversion in the sequence of sound production. / lose / by / stone /
- Coalescence or assimilation of the differentiated sounds that results in a new sound. / earth / by / stone /
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