Phonological processing in children with speech disorders

This study investigates the output phonological processing of children with phonological disorder and delay and asks whether different processing deficits underlie different speech disorders. The study compares the speech errors of two groups of children on four tasks: naming, repetition of sentence, repetition of non-words and words. These tasks arguably tap different levels of output processing. Result indicates a significantly higher percentage of phonemic errans for the phonological disorder group than the delay group. Both groups performed similarly across the four tasks. The implications for the levels of impairment in the two groups are discussed in terms of Hewlett's (1990) model of phonological processing and future therapeutic intervention is considered.