Believe it or not, phonological processes are patterns of sound errors that all children exhibit while their language skills (ability to communicate and express oneself, freely) are developing.
Typically, developing children are known to use them to simplify their speech as they are learning to talk.
Actually, according to research they are normal speech errors, however, some children do not outgrow these processes because they lack the ability to appropriately coordinate their lips, tongue, teeth, palate and jaw for clear speech.
Which results in the development of articulation impairments. Articulation impairments occur in one or more of the following ways:
- Substitution of sounds (child says: /tootie/ instead of /cookie/)
- Deletion of sounds (child says: /boo/ instead of /book/)
- Addition of sounds (child says: /puhlate/ instead of /plate/)
- Distortion of sounds (child says: /fis/ instead of /fish/)
By age 5, most children naturally outgrow these phonological error patterns.
