Comprehensive Assessment of Speech Sound Production in Preschool Children

Abstract

This paper describes a comprehensive speech sound assessment for preschool children suspected of having a speech sound disorder (SSD). Recommended components include standardized single-word testing, additional single-word testing, connected speech sampling, phonological analyses, stimulability testing, and inconsistency testing. While data collection and some cursory analyses take place during the evaluation session, allowing the speech-language pathologist (SLP) to share key information with the parents/caregivers, much of the in-depth analysis takes place later. Since most preschool children's SSDs are phonological in nature, a phonological approach to analysis, target selection, and treatment is required. Two examples of phonological analyses, a place-voice-manner (PVM) analysis and an error pattern analysis, are discussed. Both allow the SLP to identify patterns of difficulty in the child's speech with regards to the place, voicing, and/or manner characteristics of target consonants. Phonological analyses can be performed using the child's single-word and connected speech samples. This information, along with the results from the stimulability and inconsistency testing, will allow the SLP to gain a complete picture of the child's speech sound abilities and difficulties, determine prognosis for change, and identify treatment targets.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 21 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.