When someone has an articulation disorder it can be mild or it can be severe.  An articulation error is a sound error.   In other words, for some reason a sound or many sounds are produced incorrectly. It could be due to  a structural problem ( the part of the mouth or body responsible for helping us to produce sound is defective or inadequate), it may be due to insufficient auditory input (hearing loss, deafness, auditory processing, or problem of the  ear:  such as ear wax, chronic ear infections etc.) , or it may be due to faulty learning.  Sometimes it runs in families.  There are also other times when we don’t know why someone developed difficulty with sound production, that is referred to as a functional articulation disorder.

We call an articulation difference developmental when the sound is produced incorrectly, but due to a child’s age we don’t expect a child to produce it accurately.  For example when the “th” sounds as in “bathtub” and “this” are pronounced “baftub” and “dis” it is considered developmental for a four year old child.  These same errors are not considered developmental for a ten year old.  The reason for this is that it is expected that the four year old needs a little more time and then he or she will most likely say it correctly.  After certain ages, it varies with each sound, sounds are considered to be a part of everyone’s repertoire and the errors are not developmental.  Developmental errors do not require the intervention of a speech language pathologist, with some exceptions.

Articulation errors can be described as substitutions, omissions, distortions and additions. An example of one substitution is saying “wabbit” for rabbit.  Two examples of a distortion could be not elevating the tongue enough for tongue-tip/alveolar sounds or lateralizing air flow.  Omissions are simply not saying sounds that should be there; such as “op” for top or “dauw” for dog.  Additions are adding sounds where they don’t belong such as, “idear” for idea or”Keeat” (long e then short a) for cat.

Articulation errors can draw attention to the speaker as sounding different or sometimes be severe enough that there are intelligibility issues.  An intelligibility issue causes the listener to have difficulty interpreting what the speaker is trying to say.  This can be equally frustrating to the speaker as well as the listener.  Many times articulation errors cause confusion with sound symbol relationships and can affect phonics which then effect reading and writing.

There are many ways to describe various articulation disturbances.  There are phonological, oral motor, neurological, structural, organic and functional reasons for sound errors.  More importantly, however, is that many of these articulation errors can be corrected with speech therapy.  Pronunciation errors are different than articulation deficits.  Pronunciation errors do not require therapy, they are not consistent sound errors; they are errors that occur in a random word.

Whether it is fair or not …we are judged by the way we speak.  Many people equate intelligence through the way we express ourselves.  During a political campaign you will hear the media describing the speaker as knowledgeable or not based on a speech that was delivered.  Even our personalities are reflected or at least affected by how we speak.  Research also indicates a relationship with reading and writing with articulation issues and how it effects phonic perception.  This in turn affects academics.  All of these factors plus things not even touched on effect self esteem and socialization.

If you suspect someone has an articulation disorder seek help.  There are speech language pathologists in the schools and in your communities.  This is one of those problems that can be fixed with support by the right professional.  Early intervention is the key to open the door for successful communication.