Speech Sound Disorders
What is a Speech Sound Disorder?
A Speech Sound Disorder (SSD) involves difficulty perceiving and/or producing speech sounds correctly or fluently. This can present as articulation errors, phonological processes, or motor speech disorders impacting speech intelligibility. A child’s speech may fit into one of these categories or may be classified in a combination of ways, which can affect their ability to be understood by others. Treatment by a Speech Pathologist is recommended to speech sound difficulties. Typical speech sound development fact sheets from Speech Pathology Australia can be found using the Link below. Alternatively, you can find more information on the Speech Pathology Australia website.
Types of Speech Sound Disorders
Articulation Impairment: Involves difficulties with the physical production of specific speech sounds e.g. the incorrect tongue position causing a lisp.
Phonological Disorders: Affects the ability to understand and form sound patterns within a language e.g. pronouncing ‘rabbit’ pronounced as ‘wabbit’ and ‘rail’ and ‘whale’.
Apraxia of Speech: Difficulty planning and coordinating movement sequences resulting in difficulty with the stress, prosody, resonance and intonation needed for speech production.
Dysarthria: Caused by weakness, slowness or incoordination of the muscles used to produce speech. This includes irregular breathing, low pitch, soft volume and nasal voice quality.