Speech Sound Disorders: Causes and Number
What causes speech sound disorders?
Many speech sound disorders occur without a known
cause. A child may not learn how to produce sounds correctly
or may not learn the rules of speech sounds on his or
her own. These children may have a problem with speech
development, which does not always mean that they will simply
outgrow it by themselves. Many children do develop speech
sounds over time but those who do not often need the services of
an SLP to learn correct speech sounds.
Some speech sound errors can result from physical problems,
such as:
- developmental disorders (e.g.,autism)
- genetic syndromes (e.g., Down syndrome)
- hearing loss
- illness
- neurological disorders (e.g., cerebral palsy)
Children who experience frequent ear infections when they were
young are at risk for speech sound disorders if the ear
infections were accompanied by hearing loss.
Speaking with an accent and/or dialect is not a speech sound
disorder.
How common are speech sound disorders?
In young children learning to speak, speech sound errors are
quite common. In fact, very few children develop speech
without producing errors early on. By the age of 8, children
should be able to produce all sounds in English
correctly.
Information about how many children have speech sound
disorders is available in the ASHA report,
Incidence and Prevalence
of Communication Disorders and Hearing Loss in Children - 2007
Edition.
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See Also:
Speech Sound Disorders: Articulation and Phonological
Processes
Speech Sound Disorders: Benefits of Speech-Language
Pathology Services