Speech and Sound Discrimination Skills of Seven- and Eight-Year Old Cleft Palate Males

Abstract

Several authors (4, 15, 23) believe that the ability to make a distinction or comparison between closely related speech sounds must precede the production of these sounds. In order for a child's phonological skills to become increasingly differentiated, it is hypothesized that he must recog— nize certain acoustic patterns as different from others. A considerable amount of research has been conducted in the past few years ('7, 8, 1'7) to determine at what age the child begins to discriminate speech sounds. Results indicate that the potential to begin sorting phonemic variations into separate categories exists within the first year of the child's life. Locke (15) believes discrimination of acoustic patterns must be based on a comparison of the incoming perceptual event with the individual's stored repertoire of learned acoustic events. Eventually, the child learns to associate individual speech sounds with the appropriate vocal-motor movements used in producing them (15). These associations are then stored for future comparisons (4, 13). Hardy (10) feels that, once speech has been learned, the articulators are no longer totally dependent upon the auditory process for correct functioning. During the learning process, however, refinement of speech production and narrowing of the limits of acceptance of correct production is a function of improved speech discrimination and learning (10). It is hypothesized that, a prerequisite for the normal development and refinement of speech sound discrimination skills, is a relatively stable level of hearing sensitivity in the child. It is well documented (18, 22, 25, 26) that children with cleft palate, particularly when they are very young, have a higher incidence of hearing loss than normal children. Generally, the majority of the individuals with clefts have hearing losses which are fluctuating, bilateral, conductive, and related to middle ear pathology (11, 14, 26). The fluctuating nature of the cleft palate child's hearing sensitivity during the important speech developmental years Denis Finnegan is a graduate student in the