A: A speech sound disorder is a disorder relating to a child's difficulty with producing sounds or words accurately. This could include phonological disorders, articulation disorders, or motor speech disorders. Van Asch Speech Therapy is focused on treating phonological disorders, articulation disorders, and Childhood Apraxia of Speech. 

 

• Articulation refers to the way we produce sounds with our articulators (i.e. lips, tongue, jaw, teeth). Articulation disorders focus on errors, such as sound distortions (frontal or lateral lisps) and sound substitutions (producing /w/ for /r/),  in production of individual speech sounds.  ​

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• Phonology refers to the sound system of a given language. Phonological disorders refer to consistent, rule-based error patterns (called phonological processes) that impact more than one sound. As children develop language, they often use error patterns to simplify sounds/language. When these error patterns, or phonological processes, persist beyond a certain age, it is less likely that they will be eliminated on their own. For example, a child may demonstrate "fronting" by saying "tea" for "key." Instead of producing the sound /k/ with the back of their tongue, they are using the front of their tongue, and consequently producing the sound /t/. If a child has multiple phonological processes, their speech will be more difficult to understand. If a 3-year-old is understood less than 75% of the time or a 4-year old is understood less than 90-100% of the time, then a speech assessment should be considered. 

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• ​Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a neurological childhood (pediatric) speech sound disorder in which the precision and consistency of movements underlying speech are impaired in the absence of neuromuscular deficits (e.g. abnormal reflexes, abnormal tone). CAS may occur as a result of known neurological impairment, in association with complex neurobehavioral disorders of known and unknown origin, or as an idiopathic neurogenic speech sound disorder. The core impairment in planning and/or programming spatiotemporal parameters of movement sequences results in errors in speech sound production and prosody. (ASHA, 2007b, Definitions of CAS section, para. 1).