Articulation Disorder

A child with an articulation (speech sound) disorder has difficulty producing individual speech sounds or producing sounds correctly in words. There may be incorrect placement of the lips, teeth, tongue, or even soft palate during speech. This often affects the clarity of speech.

Speech sounds develop gradually over time, but most sounds should be correctly produced by the age of 3, and all sounds should be correctly produced by the age of 6. Below are common symptoms of an articulation disorder.

• Early feeding problems
• Lack of cooing with vowels at 2 to 3 months of age
• Lack of babbling using consonant sounds (particularly /b/,/m/,/d/,/n/) by 6 to 7 months
• Use of mostly vowel sounds and gestures for communication after the age of 18 months
• Unclear speech at the age of 3
• Omission of consonants in words at the age of 3
• Still unable to produce certain sounds at the age of 6

The following speech sound (articulation) errors can occur:

• Sounds in words and sentences are completely omitted: "I go o coo o the bu" for "I go to school on the bus."
• An incorrect (usually easier) sound is substituted for the correct one: "I saw a wittle wamb" instead of "I saw a little lamb."
• Sounds are distorted: a slushy sound occurs on /s/ sounds.
• Extra sounds or syllables are added to a word: "animamal" for "animal."
• There is slow, slurred speech.