Let's Be Friends: Peer Perceptions of Disordered Speech in Preschool and Early School-Aged Children

Children attend to speech variation to inform a variety of linguistic and social judgments about a talker. Communication impairments, such as speech sound disorders (SSDs), can impact social judgments made by older typically developing (TD) children and adult listeners. However, less is known about young children's perceptions of speakers with SSDs.

Four-, five-, and six-year-old TD children's (n = 37) social judgments of TD talkers and talkers with SSDs were examined in two tasks: (a) a two-alternative forced choice friendship selection task, in which listeners heard contrasting speaker types and selected a preferred friend, and (b) a scalar rating task, in which listeners rated talkers on five social dimensions: intelligence, niceness, friendliness, similarity to the listener, and likability. Social judgments were examined in relation to intelligibility and pronunciation edit distance, which were combined into a composite severity score.

Clear preferences for TD talkers were observed in both tasks with older children's preferences being stronger than that of younger children. Severity scores also contributed significantly to models of both behavioral tasks. As severity increased, the likelihood of being selected as a friend and perceived social valence decreased.

This study underscores the social impact of SSD by highlighting how both the presence and severity of SSDs influence children's social judgments. Negative social judgments could have lasting impacts on interpersonal relationships, academics, and vocational success for children with SSDs. The interaction between disorder and other sources of variation that influence social judgments, such as accent and race, should be explored.

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.30544727.