Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Pediatrics ›› 2022, Vol. 17 ›› Issue (6): 453-456.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1673-5501.2022.06.009

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Consonant errors in 222 children with speech disorders: A case series report

HUO Tingzhu1, ZHANG Lan1YANG Wenxu1ZHOU Xiaojuan1CHENG Lan1CHENG Ting1TAN Ting1LUO Xiaoli2   

  1. Chengdu Women's and Children's Central Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China; 1 Department of Child Healthcare, 2 Department of Pediatric Critical Medicin
  • Received:2022-03-16 Revised:2022-11-10 Online:2022-12-25 Published:2022-12-25
  • Contact: LUO Xiaoli

Abstract: Background Speech sound disorder(SSD)is a common cause of communication disorders in childhood with a high prevalence. For those untreated children the symptoms can persist into adulthood and affect the social communication eventually. Objective To analyze the clinical features of consonant errors in children with SSD. Design Case series report. Methods This study recruited the children who came to the department of Children's Healthcare in Chengdu Women's and Children's Central Hospital from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020 due to unclear pronunciation, who met the SSD diagnosis and whose language development was over 4 years old, and excluded other diseases that affected language function. Phonetic assessment was conducted by picture naming method. Consonants were classified and analyzed according to the pronunciation position and method. The formula for correct rate of consonants (PCC) was number of correct consonants /(number of correct consonants+number of wrong consonants) ×100%. 85%~100% were mild, 65%~85% were mild to moderate, 50%~65% were moderate to severe, and less than 50% were severe. Demographic characteristics such as age, gender and voice assessment results of SSD children were collected from the medical records. Main outcome measures PCC and consonant error types. Results A total of 222 SSD children were recruited in this study, including 67 females and 155 males. There were 111 children aged 4 to 5 years (50.0%), 66 aged 5 to 6 years (29.7%) and 45 aged 6 to 15 years (20.3%). The average PCC of male and female students was 43.3%±20.9% and 44.9%±18.9%, respectively, with no significant difference (P>0.05). There was a linear relationship between age and the severity of SSD (P<0.001), and the proportion of severe consonant errors decreased with age. In each age group, the average number of substitution errors was higher than that of ellipsis and distortion, and the average number of substitution errors decreased with the age, showing a low degree of correlation (P<0.05, r=0.217). The average number of errors in pronunciation positions in a descending order was blade-palatal, blade-alveolar, supradental, velar, alveo-palatal, bilabial, and labiodental. The average number of labiodental, supradental, blade-alveolar and blade-palatal errors decreased with age. The average number of errors in pronunciation style in a descending order was affricate, fricative, plosive, nasal, and lateral. The average number of errors in affricate, fricative, and lateral in the 4-5 age group was higher than that in the other two age groups. Conclusion SSD in children was mainly moderate to severe and severe in all age groups, and children's speech intelligibility tended to improve with age. The types of errors in all age groups were mainly substitution. The types of errors in pronunciation parts and pronunciation methods were not significantly different between the groups of 5 to 6 and 6 to 15 years old, which should be paid attention to.

Key words: Speech sound disorders, Children, Consonant