Speech Sound Disorders: Phonological Disorders

Phonological disorders are linguistic speech sound disorders which cause difficulty organizing sound patterns in the brain, leading to challenges with understanding and using correct sounds. These same sound skills are the foundation for learning to read and spell. When sound patterns aren’t clear or consistent, children can struggle to connect letters with sounds. Phonological disorders can co-occur with language disorders, articulation errors, childhood apraxia of speech, and more.

If left untreated, phonological difficulties can lead to challenges with:

• Learning letter–sound relationships

• Sounding out new words

• Spelling and writing

• Reading fluently and understanding what they read

Treating phonological speech-sound disorders early gives children a better foundation for reading, writing, and learning at school.

Examples of Common Phonological Patterns:

• Final consonant deletion – leaving off the last sound
  “ca” for “cat”

• Fronting – using sounds made in the front of the mouth instead of the back
  “tar” for “car”
  “do” for “go”

• Stopping – replacing long, airflow sounds with short “stop” sounds
  “tun” for “sun”
  “bat” for “fish”

• Cluster reduction – leaving out one sound in a consonant cluster (also referred to as blend)
  “pane” for “plane”
  “cool” for “school”