Speech Sound Disorders

Does your child have unclear speech? It’s possible they may have a speech sound disorder which is any singular or combination of difficulties with various speech sounds and segments.

Speech Sound Disorders

Speech sound disorders encompass difficulties in perception, motor production and phonic representation of speech. Children with speech sound disorders may use words, but parents and peers find it difficult to understand them. The cause of speech sound disorders differs on an individual basis as does the treatment, which is why support services from a speech pathologist is crucial to providing guided support for yourself and your child.

Key Signs of a Speech Sound Disorder

Children with a speech sound disorder can have difficulty speaking clearly and making correct word sounds at the level that would be expected for their age. Some key signs to be aware of are:

  • Your child may substitute one sound for another, leave sounds out, add sounds, or change a sound when saying words.
  • Others find it difficult to understand your child’s speech

For example,

  • If your child has difficulty producing specific sounds, they mix up specific sounds, or you observe the repetition of continual distorted sound they may have an Articulation Disorder.
  • If your child has difficulty with consonants often leaving out the first and last sound of words or they continually or often leave out some or all of the speech sounds, this may indicate a Phonological Disorder.

Educational Resources

Listed below are link to helpful information about Speech Sound Disorders

Treatment Methods

We focus on the specific contexts which are required to facilitate production of key sounds, and work with your child to build techniques to create these sounds and foster the confidence to develop these sounds. We also focus on improving phonemic contrast in your child’s speech. Key areas of focus for us are:

  • Teaching your child the correct way to pronounce and create sounds
  • Practice specific sounds in isolation, then nonsense syllables, single words, phrases, sentences, structured conversational tasks, unstructured conversation
  • Child learns key tells of correct and incorrect sounds
  • Practice the key sounds in differing words

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