A Comparison of Speech—Sound Production and Discrimination in Children With Functional Articulation Disorders

Thirty five-, six- and seven-year-old male children, who were diagnosed as having a functional articulation disorder, were administered tests of speech sound production and discrimination to investigate the hypothesized relationship between these two functions. The Goldman-Fristoe-Woodcock Test of Auditory Discrimination was used to obtain discrimination responses. The same instrument was adapted to obtain articulation responses from the identical word-picture stimulus items. An articulatory-based distinctive feature system was employed to analyse both articulation and discrimination responses. Univariate statistics performed on the articulation and discrimination scores revealed a lack of significant correlation and a superiority of discrimination over articulation performance. Discriminant analysis revealed further that articulation and discrimination profiles, constructed from feature scores, were statistically distinct. Implications for articulation therapy are discussed.