A speech-language pathologist may have used the term “phonological disorder” or “phonological delay” to describe your child’s difficulty with speech sounds. Let’s delve into what this means.
All children use patterns of sound errors when they are learning to talk. These patterns are called phonological processes. A phonological disorder occurs when the patterns (phonological processes) persist beyond the age when most children have stopped using them. These patterns of errors are predictable.
The type of intervention for these kinds of errors is called phonology therapy. This intervention is play-based and emphasizes both listening and making the sounds in words. A home program for extra learning opportunities will help the patterns become more “automatic” for the child. The treatment uses a “cycles” approach. Each cycle involves teaching a pattern. The sounds within that pattern are systematically chosen for therapy by the speech pathologist. The child is exposed to listening and saying the sound in carefully chosen words that match the child’s developmental level.
Kinds of phonology intervention methods include:
- Auditory bombardment – opportunities to hear/listen to the sound over and over again, without pressure to produce it.
- Production practice – Practice saying the word or target words
- Script play – play routines using target “scripted words”
- Early auditory activities including phonemic awareness- Sound blending, sound discrimination, rhyming, sound segmenting, letter to sound matching. These skills are related to early reading.
Check with your physician or speech language pathologist to determine whether your child should have their hearing assessed by an audiologist prior to therapy. Your child needs to be hearing well in order to make progress in therapy.
The takeaway from this blog is that a phonological delay is treatable. Phonology therapy should be fun for your child and informative to you so that you may implement phonology techniques in everyday caregiving and play.