Speech Sound Disorders Chapter 1

ASHA's Definition of Speech Sound Disorders

• Speech sound disorders refer to difficulties with perception, motor production, or phonological representation of speech sounds and segments.
• These disorders can be organic (resulting from an underlying motor/neurological, structural, or sensory/perceptual cause) or functional (idiopathic, with no known cause).
• Speech sound disorders can range from mild (e.g., a lisp) to severe, where the person is completely unintelligible.

Describing Sound Errors in Children

• Delay: Refers to common speech errors seen in young children learning to speak (e.g., lisps, trouble with /r/).
• Deviant: Refers to unusual errors not typical in children's speech development (e.g., lateralization of /s/, backing of sounds that should be at the front, vowel errors).

Importance of Speech Sound Disorders

• Communication: Speech sound disorders affect communication.
• Literacy Development: Research shows that children's phonological awareness (manipulating sounds in words) is closely linked to their literacy skills (learning to read and spell).

Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)

• Definition: EBP involves integrating three types of evidence: best available external evidence (research from systematic studies), best available internal evidence (data from clinical practice), and patient preferences (considering what fully informed patients prefer).

Two Perspectives on Speech Sounds

• Motor Production (Speech): Refers to the physical act of producing sounds with speech organs.
• Units of Meaning (Language): When sounds are part of the language system and help create meaning, they are called phonemes.

Phonemic vs. Phonetic Transcription

• Phonemic Transcription: Uses symbols to represent phonemes and is less detailed (e.g., /p/).
• Phonetic Transcription: More detailed and shows variations within phonemes (e.g., [p] can have different sounds like released or unreleased).

Allophones

• Allophones are different versions of the same phoneme that do not change word meaning.
• Examples: /p/ in "pop" can be pronounced with or without a burst of air.

Types of Allophonic Variation

• Complementary Distribution: Allophones appear in different environments and do not overlap (e.g., front and back /k/ sounds).
• Free Variation: Allophones can appear in the same environment (e.g., released vs. unreleased /p/ in "pop").

Main Components of Language

• Phonemes: Smallest unit of sound that may cause a change of meaning within a language.
• Morphemes: Smallest meaningful unit of language, combined to produce meaningful units (words).
• Free Morphemes: Individual words that can exist on their own (e.g., eat, water).
• Bound Morphemes: Prefixes, suffixes, or other linguistic pieces that must be attached to another word to have meaning (e.g., -s, re-).
• Morphology: Study of morphemes.

This quiz covers the definition and types of speech sound disorders, including organic and functional causes. Learn about perception, motor production, and phonological representation of speech sounds.