The SLPing SLP’s (very own, very personal, heavily influenced by her graduate training) Definition of Phonology:

As wacky as this week is going, I basically want to say: “Whatever is on those dreadful SuperDuper articulation and phonology cards is exactly what I think phonology is NOT.”

And then go read my book club book.  But then I like to think I take this blog a little more seriously than that.  So.

I agree with the ASHA that a phonological disorder is one where a child exhibits “patterns of sound error.”  However, I do not think of these patterns as the phonological processes that have been discussed and described in some areas of literature (final consonant deletion, fronting, backing, etc.; see Khan, 1982 in Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools for an overview of phonological processes).

A pattern to me is when a child is omitting or substituting a sound or set of sounds consistently. While placement (e.g., backing) might be a noticeable pattern, so might whether or not the child is using manner or voice. I then examine these missing sounds and their features and use this to determine which sound or sounds to target.

Because I view phonology (and most the kids on my caseload with a sound/speech disorder) as a problem with a cognitive representation of the English sound system, rather than a strictly motor one, my approach to treatment is different from it is with articulation. If I have a child between the ages of three and four (maybe up to four and a half) with a moderate to severe phonological disorder, I will teach later developing sounds* in an attempt to change the entire sound system (because it is a system, isn’t it?  We have charts that show how place, voice a manner overlap, remember?), and I will teach only initial word position. No painstaking, long-suffering movement through syllables, medial and final positions, and phrases and sentences. Because I’m not trying to replace a learned motor pattern, I’m trying to replace a learned cognitive pattern, or, perhaps more accurately, teach the child something about the phonological pattern of English that s/he had not previously learned from her/his environment.

My definition of articulation is to come, and is much, much shorter than this one. (Yay! I can dig into my book club book!) What do you think of my definition? (That’s right! Now’s your chance to disagree with someone on the Internet!) How do you treat kids on your caseload for articulation/phonological disorders (depending on the definition you personally use)? Does your definition affect your treatment approach?

 

*The underlying theory behind choosing later developing sounds is that a more complex sound will result in generalization to less complex sounds. A good introduction to this approach to phonological treatment is by Gierut (2001) and can be found in Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.

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