A Comparison of Articulation and Phonological Processing

By Stacie Bennett•Jan 15, 2022•

Often, when we talk about typical development in speech, the conversation is influenced by articulation and phonological awareness. So, it’s important to realize that there are many reasons why a child isn’t talking or why their intelligibility (what is understood by the listener) is poor, and phonological processing is one of them.

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Speech sound disorders can be broken down into phonological disorders and articulation disorders. Please note that it is very important that speech sound disorders be diagnosed appropriately, as treatments for phonological and articulation disorders differ.

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Next, articulation disorders happen when a child has difficulty producing a specific sound (or sounds) and are fixed by addressing the sound(s) in error. For example, a child may put their tongue in the wrong spot when creating the /r/ sound, which makes the /r/ sound different than it should be.

If your child has an articulation disorder, they:

have problems making sounds and forming particular speech sounds properly (e.g. they may lisp, so that s sounds like the);
may not be able to produce a particular sound (e.g. they can’t make the r sound, and say “wabbit” instead of “rabbit”).

You can target specific sounds with articulation therapy:

Phonological disorders are more complex, as they are patterns in a child’s speech used to simplify speech sound production. An example of this is when a child deletes the last sound off of a word. They might say /ca/ for /cat/ or /si/ for /sit/. The majority of children with highly unintelligible speech present with a phonological disorder, as their speech is characterized by repeating patterns of incorrect productions.

Children have a phonological disorder if they:

are able to make the sounds correctly, but they may use it in the wrong position in a word, or in the wrong word, e.g. a child may use the d sound instead of the g sound, and so they say “doe” instead of “go”;
make mistakes with the particular sounds in words, e.g. they can say k in “kite” but with certain words, will leave it out e.g. “lie” instead of “like.”

The types of disorders in phonological processes chart:

Phonological Process

Description

Example

Fronting

replacement of a sound typically produced in the back of the oral cavity with a front sound

“tar” for “car,” “tandy” for “candy”

Backing

replacement of a sound typically produced in the front of the oral cavity with a back sound

“gog” for “dog”

Final Consonant Deletion

omission/deleting of final consonant

“cu” for “cup”

Cluster Reduction

simplification of a cluster (two letter sound) into single sound

“poon” for “spoon”

Weak syllable deletion

deletion of weak syllable in word

“tefone” for “telephone”

Gliding

sound /r/ and /l/ replaced by /w/ and “j”

“wadder” for “ladder”

Stopping

replacement of sounds

“too” for “shoe”

Reduplication

repetition of syllables

“wawa” for “water”

Prevocalic Voicing

replacement of voiceless consonant with a voiced consonant

“vone” for “phone”

Initial Consonant Deletion

deletion of initial consonant

“ose” for “nose”

Epenthesis

addition of “uh” sound in between two consonants

“puh-lane” for “plane”

It’s important to know that children’s speech goes through normal articulation and phonological errors. By 2-years-of-age, a child’s speech should be 50% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener, by 3-years-of-age 75% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener, and by 4-years-of-age 100% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener (ASHA).

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