Effects of Word Length on Articulatory Accuracy in Children with Speech Sound Disorders

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the word length effects in a 1-2-3 syllable string test in children with speech sound disorders (SSDs) and to examine whether the accuracy in the 1-2-3 syllable string test could differentiate subgroups of SSDs classified by linguistic symptomatology.Methods: The 1-2-3 syllable string test was administrated to a total of 161 children with SSDs from 3 years to 9 years 11 months of age. The children with SSDs were classified into four subgroups, articulatory disorders, phonological delay, consistent phonological disorder, and inconsistent phonological disorder. Accuracy in the 1-2-3 syllable string test was measured at word, phoneme, vowel, consonant, and target syllables; and compared among SSD subgroups.Results: The main effects of SSD subgroups and word length exhibited significances at word, phoneme, consonant, and target syllables levels. The interaction effect between subgroups and word length was also significant. Phonological delay and inconsistent phonological disorder revealed significant effects of word length; and in particular, children with inconsistent phonological disorders showed a significant increase of errors as the number of syllable in the test words increased.Conclusion: The results support the possibility that subgroups of SSDs can be differentiated based on accuracy and word length effect in a 1-2-3 syllable string test, which can be useful in identifying children showing inconsistent productions and sequencing difficulties.