Speech Sound Disorders refer to articulatory and phonological disorders. The truth is that we take speech for granted and only when some processes of speech are impaired we realize the complexity of speech production. Production of speech is a series of coordinated actions and it requires exact placement, sequencing, timing, direction and force of articulation. All these actions take place with precise airstream, alteration, initiation or halting of phonation, and velopharyngeal action. When this complex process is disrupted, it results in articulatory problems.
Articulatory problems can be organic – known physical cause – or functional – no known physical cause. Organic causes refer to causes such as hearing loss, cleft lip/palate, cerebral palsy, tongue-tie, acquired apraxia or dysarthria. Functional speech sound disorders are related to the motor production of speech sounds (substitutions, distortions), and phonological disorders are related to the rules that govern the speech productions (fronting, backing, final consonant deletions) and affect more than one sound.
Articulation can be influenced by Accent or Dialect. Accent can be regional i.e., someone from New York may sound different than someone from South Carolina, or foreign. Foreign accent is characterized by sounds that are carried over from the native language to the second language. Dialects i.e. “dis” for “this”, or “you was” for “you were” may influence not only phonology but also morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Accents and dialects are not considered are not considered speech or language disorders, but, rather, indicate differences. SLPs are trained to recognize dialects and accents and take them into consideration during tests and assessments of articulation/phonology skills.