ARTICULATION DISORDERS IN STUDENTS AND CLASSROOM INTERVENTIONS

Abstract

Speech is peculiar to man as a means of communication which involves the mouth or the speech organ. In some cases, the speech organ may become defective, thereby leading to speech disorders. A speech disorder can be described as any condition that affects a person's ability to produce sounds that create words.Speech disorders prevent people from forming correct speech sounds as expected by the society based on age, gender, and stature. This article discussed articulation disorders, which is a type of speech disorders, as the production of sounds, syllables or words incorrectly so that the listeners do not understand what is being said or pay more attention to the way the words sound than to what they mean. Types of articulation disorders discussed are omission, substitution, addition and distortion. Many therapeutic interventions were discussed before it was recommended that parents should avail their children at risk of speech disorder, especially articulation disorder, the opportunity of early intervention so as to mitigate the future debilitating effect of articulation disorder on academic performance and psychosocial wellbeing. It was equally recommended among others that the right professionals, like audiologists and speech language pathologists (SLPs) should be consulted and engaged for therapeutic and remediation services for optimum result.