Roger's Mild Articulation Problem

Component 2
Problem
Roger That was diagnosed with a mild articulation disorder that affects his intelligibility. Organic articulation disorders and functional articulation disorders are generally discussed when determining the cause of an individual’s articulation disorder. An organic articulation disorder is related to structural and neurological impairments. Roger’s oral peripheral examination, which states that his articulators function adequately, indicates that there are no structural impairments. A functional articulation disorder potentially contributes to Roger’s mild articulation disorder. A functional articulation disorder is a result of a deficiency in learning or hearing specific speech sounds or not having an evident organic articulation
disorder. Roberts’s faulty learning is potentially caused by two factors.
Robert needed pressure equalization tubes because of his ear infections when he one and two years old, possibly negatively affecting his speech development. Pressure equalization tubes prevent the accumulation of fluid within the middle ear by ventilating the fluid out of the middle ear. A sign that a child has an ear infection is when they do not respond to sounds and this is a result of the difficulty the child has when trying to hear, due to their hearing loss. The University of Speech, Language, and Hearing Clinic (USLHA) indicated that he does not currently have a hearing loss, but I believe that his ear infection could have caused a short-term hearing loss. Another factor that contributes to his articulation disorder is his premature birth. Robert was born 3 weeks early. Premature babies are subjected to several health and development issues depending on their prematurity, but generally, infants born before 37
months develop problems.
Prevalence/Incidence
There are about six million individuals under the age of eighteen who have a speech and language disorder. Articulation disorders and phonological disorders are classified as speech sound disorders and according to the American Speech Language Hearing Association, about 2-25 percent of children have a speech sound disorder. Eleven percent of speech sound disorders are articulation disorders (Peña-Brooks & Hegde, 2015).
Key Characteristics
Roger’s mild articulation disorder means that he struggles to produce speech sounds correctly. Although there are organic articulation disorders, functional articulation disorders are more common and the cause of the disorder is typically unknown. About 80-90% of articulation disorders are functional, not organic/structural disorders (Braislin & Cascella, 2005). Braislin and Casella state that articulation disorders severity is mild to severe and producing speech sounds involve correctly shaping the different speech sounds (2005).

Impact on Daily Living
Roger’s mild articulation disorder affected his daily life because his articulation inaccuracies affected his intelligibility. When speaking with the individuals around him, Roger has to correct his speech productions. He notices when the individuals that he is communicating with are unable to understand what he is communicating, and he attempts to self-correct his speech. His mild articulation doesn’t affect his communications that much in context, but it would be difficult for someone joining the conversation to understand the point of the story.
Potential Intervention Goals
Roger initial struggled with /g/, /ʃ/, /ʧ/, /ʤ/, /r/, and /r/, /k/, /l/ blends during his initial assessment in 2014, but in the spring of 2015 he struggles to correctly produce /r/, /l/, /ʃ/, and /ʧ/ in words and sentences.
1. The client will produce /r/ in initial, middle, and final word positions in a structured setting with 2 different cues (tongue placement instruction videos and modeling) 7 out of 10 times.
2. The client will produce /l/ in the final position during conversations in clinician’s office 80% of the time.
3. The client will stop fronting /ʃ/ with /s/ in the initial position during conversations with the clinician 80% of the time.
4. The client will produce /ʧ/ in all positions 80% of the time in conversations with an authority figure (principle).
5. The client will produce /ʧ/ in all position 70% of the time in conversation in every setting and with different people.
Intervention Strategies
Roger intelligibility is a result of his inability to produce /ʃ/, /r/, and /l/ in initial, middle, and/or final positions in words and in conversation.
The clinician can find a board game with /r/ in all positions and instruct the Roger to say the word on each card that has the /r/ in different positions. Once the child correctly produces the /r/ then the child can roll the dice on the board game. The clinician can tell a child a story from a picture book with /ʃ/ in the initial position and /l/ in the final position then instruct him to repeat the different stories. The clinician should instruct Roger to communicate to other individuals of higher authority and instruct his parents to watch how he talks to others and in different
environments
Assessment
Ear infections or otitis media is an inflammation of the middle ear that negatively affects a child communication development. If a child is struggling to hear due to the fluid diluting the sound signal transmitted to the ear then they will struggle to produce the sound. In Roger’s initial evaluation and progress reports, he continually improves his speech productions, indicating that if he potentially struggled due to the negative impacts of a short-term hearing. His hearing was already tested, indicating he had normal hearing, so his speech should improve. I recommend that after taking more speech-language samples the clinician notes his improvement.