Can articulation therapy cause stuttering?

Experts state that there is no data treatment for one type of speech disorder that would cause another. Though some recognize that if too much stress is placed on a child to enunciate accurately, the pressure of the situation could provoke a fluency difficulty in a child prone to it, like if there is a family history of stuttering. 

Analysts and professionals don’t have all the explanations for why some kids start stuttering during/ after speech therapy, nor are there certain procedures to treat multiple disorders. A parent and speech therapist can carry on with therapy step by step based on their evaluations and experience.

How can speech therapy help with articulation disorder?

Speech and language therapy or articulation therapy centers on pronunciation and speaking. It addresses an individual’s ability to move the tongue, teeth, lips, and jaw to create speech sounds. It can help children improve the sounds they are found difficult to produce through various approaches and activities. Articulation therapy can also encourage children to utter their new learned sound accurately in words slowly.

How long should a child stay in articulation speech therapy?

Several children who have to undergo speech therapy suffer from an articulation or phonological disorder. Children might visit a speech therapist one to several times per week. Treatment can take a couple of weeks, months, or even years.  Several factors dictate how long you should expect therapy to take:

•          the nature of your child’s speech difficulty
•          the severity of that problem
•          other coexisting problem
•          the proficiency of the therapist
•          how involved you are, as a parent

Which therapy technique is a phonological approach?

Minimal Pairs

It consists of two words with sounds that are very similar but have different meanings because of a phoneme that differs by one sound or feature. For example, “wing” and “ring” may sound alike, particularly to some non-native English speakers.

Multiple Oppositions

Multiple Oppositions is much like Minimal Pairs, though, it features two to four targets that are different from one another and different from the substituted sound. The therapist may have the child produce words with the initial sound, such as “sick,” “trick,” and “kick,” to lessen the phonological process of backing.

Maximal Oppositions

Two targets are chosen that differ on many phonetic feature dimensions of place, manner, and voicing.  For example, “my ” and “dye,” where the first consonant differs in the location and how it is made.

Empty Set

Treatment using an empty set consists of two target words that a child cannot produce, meaning each word in the pair contains an unknown target sound.

How are phonological disorders treated?

Treatment for children with phonological disorders often involves focusing on the phonological processes at fault as defined by the speech therapist. Compared with traditional articulation therapy, phonologically-based intervention treats a child’s imperfect phonological system instead of physical, articulatory movements. 

Case in point, a therapist can point where to put the tongue or how to form the lips when producing a sound.  It frequently develops speech clarity at a faster pace for children with phonological disorders.

What is an example of a phonological disorder?

• Children with a phonological disorder keep using wrong speech patterns past the age they must have stopped applying them.
• Children with a phonological disorder may create sound errors when producing words that are not observed in the speech development of normally growing children.
• Children with a phonological disorder may create a sound/s accurately in one word but find it hard to produce the same sound/s in other words.
• Children may leave out a sound even if they can utter the same sound when it appears in other words or nonsensical syllables. For example, a child who cuts last consonants may say “ca” for “cat” yet may have no difficulty pronouncing words, such as “go” or “key.”

Treatment options for Articulation & Phonological

Articulation and phonological disorders are treatable. Early intervention and treatment can favorably affect your child, socially and academically. Articulation and phonological therapy include a developmental strategy based on the acquisition of sounds in normally developing children.  Therapy includes evidence-based approaches shown to change the speech sound production of preschool and school-age children. 

A competent speech pathologist must evaluate your child if there are some problems concerning their speech. With the right speech therapy, countless children with articulation or phonological disorders will have notable development in their speech.