Assessment of information processing in children with functional articulation disorders

The aim of this study was to investigate the information processing skills in children who have functional articulation disorder by using a cognitive-linguistic test battery.

Thirty-three children with functional articulation disorder were enrolled in this study. They ranged in age from 6 to 10 years. A control group without articulation disorders was composed of 160 children with similar properties. In the first stage of this study, both groups were administered the Ross Information Processing Assessment Test-Primary. In this test, the scores obtained from eight subtests; namely immediate memory, recent memory, recall of general information, spatial orientation, temporal orientation, organization, problem solving and abstract reasoning, was calculated for both groups. The scores of the eight subtests are combined to form the four composites. These composites are memory quotient, orientation quotient, thinking and reasoning quotient and information processing quotient. Information processing quotient is the best and the most comprehensive estimate of a child's overall information processing ability. In the second stage of the study the articulation-disordered group was divided into two subgroups according the number of the mistakes, which was done at the level of the phoneme. The scores obtained from both subgroups were compared with the scores of the control group.

The overall statistical analysis of the scores revealed that; the study group had significantly lower scores than the control group from memory quotient, thinking and reasoning quotient and information processing quotient. When compared to control group, the subgroup who cannot pronounce one phoneme had similar scores from all four composites. Moreover, the children who cannot pronounce multiple phonemes had significantly lower scores from memory quotient, thinking and reasoning quotient and information processing quotient. The results obtained from this study seem to be suggesting that information processing skills of children with functional articulation disorder are significantly low as compared to normal children.

These results are revealing that the information processing skills of children with functional articulation disorder should be investigated in a detailed manner. According to the results obtained from this investigation these children should be put on deficit oriented education programs in addition to articulation therapy.