Characteristics of consonant among children with speech sound disorder

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the characteristics of consonant among children with speech sound disorder (SSD) and to provide an empirical basis for the subsequent clinical evaluation and evidence-based intervention. Methods: In this retrospective research a total of 1 395 children diagnosed with SSD from the Language-Speech Clinic of the Department of Children Health Care, Children's Hospital, Capital Institute of Pediatrics from January 2007 to December 2018 were enrolled and underwent the phonological examination on the lexical level with picture naming, according to phoneme development in Chinese mandarin. The Chi-square trend test was applied to analyze the differences and trends of the proportion of consonant error subtypes in children of different age groups. The Chi-square test was conducted to compare the proportion of consonant error subtypes in different gender. Results: The 1 395 children diagnosed with SSD included 1 044 boys and 351 girls, with an age of (5.1±0.8) years. The occurrence of consonant errors in different locations of articulation was the highest for blade-alveolar /l/ (71.8%, 1 002/1 395) and the lowest for labial/b/(9.3%, 130/1 395). The occurrence of consonant errors of labial/p/f/, supra-dental/z/c/s/, blade-alveolar/t/l/, blade-palatal/ch/r/, velar/k/h/, and lingua-palatal/q/decreased with age (all P<0.05). The occurrence of consonant errors of labial/b/m/, supra-dental/z/c/, blade-alveolar/n/l/, blade-palatal/sh/, velar/h/, and lingua-palatal/x/were higher in boys than those in girls (10.3% (108/1 044) vs. 6.3% (22/351), 11.4% (119/1 044) vs. 6.0% (21/351), 64.8% (676/1 044) vs. 51.9% (182/351), 67.8% (708/1 044) vs. 59.8% (210/351), 16.7% (174/1 044) vs. 8.8% (31/351), 73.7% (769/1 044) vs. 66.1% (232/351), 58.0% (606/1 044) vs. 47.6% (167/351), 24.0% (251/1 044) vs. 14.2% (50/351), and 39.9% (417/1 044) vs. 27.6% (97/351); χ²=5.167, 8.533, 16.889, 7.447, 12.863, 7.412, 11.650, 14.900, and 17.099, all P<0.05). The error types of consonant were substitution, omission, and distortion. Omission was the main error type of blade-alveolar/l/(53.3%, 743/1 395), distortion was the main error type of velar/h/(11.8%, 165/1 395), and substitution was the main error type of all other consonants. Substitution with blade-palatal/ch/having the highest occurrence of error (60.2%, 840/1 395). Conclusions: The occurrence of the blade-alveolar/l/error is the highest in children with SSD, with boys demonstrating more serious articulation problems. The main error type of consonant is substitution, with blade-palatal/ch/having the highest occurrence of error. These results suggest the necessity of attending to preschoolers' articulation development. Phonological training targeting blade-alveolar/l/and blade-palatal/ch/should be carried out as early as possible.