If a child is mispronouncing a word, does he perceive the difference between his production and the correct pronunciation of the word? A child’s auditory and speech skills are closely tied together. His speech production can often reflect what he is hearing. For instance, maybe a child says “two” for “shoe.” Does he hear the difference between those two words? If he doesn’t readily perceive the difference, then the question becomes: is it a matter of auditory training or auditory access?
In the case of auditory training, with teaching and repeated practice, the child can develop his auditory skills to become more aware of the difference between his speech error and the target production. If an adult produces, “two” vs. “shoe,” the child might not initially recognize the difference and choose at random between pictures representing the words. With teaching and repeated practice, the child can begin to tune in to and perceive the difference between “two” and “shoe” by pointing to the correct corresponding pictures. Even if he is not producing the “sh” sound in his speech yet, we know that he perceives the difference between “t” and “sh.” He has the auditory access with his device/s to identify the difference between those two sounds and it becomes a matter of that child learning to produce the “sh” sound in his speech.
On the other hand, auditory access could be a concern and even with extensive auditory training and practice, the child does not have the auditory access with his device/s to perceive the difference between “two” and “shoe.” In this case, collaborate with the child’s audiologist to see if programming changes could improve his access. Programming options may be exhausted and the limited access to the difference between those two sounds will remain. This is not to say that the child cannot learn to produce the “sh” sound in his speech, but supports like visual or tactile cues or the written form of the sound in print will be helpful to establish his production and know when the sound exists in words.
If a child is a new listener, he might imitate the suprasegmentals or intonation of familiar phrases before producing specific speech sounds. For instance, when modeling “1…2…3….Go!” while pushing cars down a ramp, a child might initially produce “uh… uh…uh….uuuuuhhhhh!” When first developing his auditory skills, a child learns the broad suprasegmental aspects of speech like pitch and duration before tuning into specific vowel and consonant sounds. As the child’s auditory skills progress, he begins to imitate the vowel sounds of that phrase. Once developed even further, he begins to imitate some of the consonant sounds as well. This process can sometimes happen quite naturally.
With all that said, a child can auditorily perceive a sound but continue to produce it incorrectly in his speech. It is possible that a child displays speech patterns that have very little to do with his auditory perception. Some speech patterns could take more time to change. A child might develop his auditory perception of a target relatively quickly, but changing the child’s speech production of that target will be a longer process.
When identifying the most effective strategies to target speech skills, it is important to be aware of the question of perception vs. production. Is a child’s speech error due to his auditory perception of the sound, his ability to produce the sound in his speech, or both? The answer to this question allows us to develop the most appropriate goals and strategies to support a child in his development of speech and auditory skills.
Jackie Unser is the lead speech-language pathologist at CID – Central Institute for the Deaf. Prior to working at CID, she provided teletherapy intervention to children ages 3- 11 who are deaf and hard of hearing. Ms. Unser has presented as a guest lecturer on assessing the communication skills of children who are deaf and hard of hearing at Fontbonne University and has co-authored and presented a workshop targeted for speech-language pathologists at CID. In addition, she wrote an online course about assessing the speech and language skills of children who are deaf and hard of hearing.
