Why is my student having trouble speaking?
Development versus articulation
There are many reasons that a student may have trouble speaking clearly in English. He may have a developmental disability, a hearing loss, be bilingual, have a cleft palate, etc. The following is an example of how you can parcel out the various possibilities to suggest which has the most impact at the current time.
In the following example, the yellow highlighted sounds are those that this student has trouble with. Notice how they are “all over the board”. In other words, it’s not as if he can say all of the sounds that a 5-year-old should be making, but none of the later-developing ones. Assuming this child is 9 years old, he should still work on his speech, but something other than the traditional “difficulty” of speech sounds is causing his trouble.
If the student is 9, and the errors were all in sounds that typically develop at aged 7 and 8 for example, he is most likely developing speech in the normal order, but at a delayed pace. This is the most common type of speech issue, a delay. There are many possible causes for this, but the student will predictably find later-developing sounds, blends (such as /sp/) and longer combinations more challenging.
Hearing and it’s effect on speech
The above speech sound difficulties don’t seem to have any developmental pattern. Some are easy, and some difficult sounds have been mastered.
But what if the student has a hearing loss, even a mild, undetected one?
We learn to speak by copping the speech we hear. If we miss some speech sounds because they are quiet or muffled, we will either leave them out of words, or say them incorrectly. Or rather, we will say them correctly as we hear them.
Speech sounds aren’t all spoken at the same pitch and volume. An audiogram, an example of which is below, is a line graph that shows the softest sound a person can hear at each frequency. Anything above the green line, the student can’t hear with hearing aids on. Anything above the red line can’t be heard by him without hearing aids. The “location” of the speech sounds in this continuum are shows on the graph as well. Notice how all of his speech errors (highlighted in yellow) are above the threshold of sounds he can’t hear without his hearing aids and many can be barely heard or not heard even with his hearing aids on. This pattern is pretty clear.
In this example, the student’s hearing is most likely to blame for at least part of his articulation issues. In this case, it’s important to work on speech and sound discrimination skills as well as articulation, and make sure the student is aided as much as possible.
Articulation development in native languages
As a student is exposed to the sounds of her local language, I look to see if there are any sound in the language that aren’t in English which she can pronounce, so we can give her credit for being able to say these sounds. I also compared her speech to that of both languages to see if he has less errors in one than the other.
The first step would be to write an articulation inventory for the native language.
Step 1: Simple articulation inventory: Find a dictionary of words in the target language. Find one word with each sound in the consonant chart in the very beginning. For example, in English, you would find a word starting with the ‘p’ sound, like “pit”. Keep in mind that you are looking for the speech sounds as listed on the consonant chart, as above, not the letter. For example, you are looking for “Phone” would start with the /f/ sound, not the /p/ sound. If you are not sure, look at the pronunciation guide next to the word in the dictionary. It will list the word phonetically, using the same symbols as in the consonant chart.
Than find a word with each sound in the “medial position” (the middle) of each word, than at the end.
Step 2:
Take baseline data on the student. Ask him or her to say each word in succession. As each word is said, mark if the sound was said correctly (+), left out of the word(-), or said incorrectly(i). You may want to record this and play it back if you want to make sure. Keep in mind that the student only needs to say the targeted sound correctly, not the whole word. If the targeted sound is /b/, and the word is /bat/, and he says /bag/, it should be marked correct, because you are looking only at the /b/ sound.
As an example, here is a list of these words in Yupik:
Sound / Initial position / Medial position / Finial positiona / aataq (Father) / egaleq (window)
c / civuaq (incisor tooth) / nacuaq (hat)
e / elqupak (cast iron kettle)
g / eglu (sinew or thread) / angqaq (basketball) / ermig (to wash one's face)
gg / gguun (this way) / iggiayuli (great horned owl)
i / iggiayuli (great horned owl) / wii (me)
k / kulun (ring) / tekiituten (you have arrived) / elqupak (cast iron kettle)
l / lintiq (bow, ribbon) / elqiaq (traditional wooden visor) / iggiayuli (great horned owl)
ll / ller'ar (spinner toy)
m / maassleq (butter) / qimugta (dog) / ugalguum (fishskin bag, ammunition bag, quiver for arrows)
m
n / nacuaq (hat) / lintiq (bow, ribbon) / gguun (this way)
p / piipiq (baby) / elqupak (cast iron kettle)
q / qimugta (dog) / elqupak (cast iron kettle) / avataq (sealskin float)
r / ermig (to wash one's face) / ller'ar (spinner toy) / ller'ar (spinner toy)
rr / saarralaq (sugar)
s/y / saarralaq (sugar) / iggiayuli (great horned owl)
ss
t / tekiituten (you have arrived) / avataq (sealskin float) / qimugta (dog)
u / uluaq (woman's knife)
ug / ugalguum (fishskin bag, ammunition bag, quiver for arrows)
ur / uruq (tundra moss)
urr / urr'aq (white or gray clay mixed with caribou fur for pottery)
v / evek (grass) / civuaq (incisor tooth)
vv / evvaat (harmonica)
w / wii (me)
Interestingly, if you are very good at consonant charts, you can do this even if you don’t know the targeted language. First, make sure you know how the targeted sounds are made in the language (keeping in mind that letters are sometimes pronounced differently in different languages, and that some languages have sounds that other don’t). Then simply mark down if they say it correctly. In this assessment, you are not concerned with the meaning of the word, but simply it’s speech sounds.
Step 3:
You now have data on which sounds the student can say correctly. Remember that, for young students, it would be expected that he or she would develop some sounds after others. For example, a native speaker of English may not say her /r/ sound until she is eight years olds, and that would be considered normal. The same is true of other languages. You can find this information under “developmental milestones” and the name of the language on the Internet.
Compare his or her speech to that on the developmental milestones chart. Is he or she delayed? If so, are the sounds developing in the same order as the chart would suggest?
The chart below is an example from North SlopeIñupiaq. Notice that there are speech sounds that aren’t in English that she can articulate. When discussing the sounds she can make, these can be added.
Also, this chart shows that, when comparing the number of sounds she has the most difficulty with in each language; she has less errors in Iñupiaq (29.4% of sounds) than in English (36.8% of sounds). She might simply be more used to speaking in North Slope Iñupiaq than in English. To make the charts easier to compare, this only relates to the sounds she has difficulty with in all (or most) positions in words, or omits in many words without prompting. Also, because some sounds are very rare in certain positions on Iñupiaq words, I couldn’t compare her use in those positions.