Phonological Disorders

Phonological disorders are speech sound disorders. Children and adults with phonological disorders have trouble correctly saying multiple sounds. These people make the same type of error or errors across several sounds.

Error patterns, also known as phonological processes, often fall into at least one of three categories: place, manner, and voicing. Place tells where in the mouth the sound is made, manner tells how the air is managed to make a sound, and voicing tells whether or not the voice is used. Other common phonological error patterns include final consonant deletion and cluster reduction.

Examples of errors:

• Place: Saying “tan” for “can”

• Manner: Saying “pan” for “fan”

• Voicing: Saying “pat” for “bat”

• Final Consonant Deletion: Saying “ca” for “cat”

• Cluster Reduction” Saying “pane” for “plane”

When treating people with phonological disorders it is important to focus on correcting the error pattern or patterns, rather treating each sound individually. Correcting error patterns fixes the production of multiple sounds at one time!

Green Light treats clients that use a single phonological process, as well as those that use many. Evidence based methods are applied to ensure that therapy is effective, while client interests are incorporated to promote and maintain enthusiastic participation. For more information about phonological disorders schedule a free consultation!