Classification of Speech Sound Disorders in French-Speaking Children

No study has validated English-based classification systems of speech sound disorders (SSDs) with French-speaking children. This study aimed to determine whether SSDs in French-speaking children could be classified into three groups: motor speech, phonological (or speech delay), and articulation (or speech errors), and whether the phonological group could be further divided into phonological delay, consistent phonological disorder, and inconsistent phonological disorder, as proposed in current classification systems.

Participants included 59 children with SSD and 40 children with typical development, aged 4 to 8 years. They were administered a battery of tasks that targeted phonological and motor speech aspects of production. Focusing primarily on three motor speech tasks (intra-word variability, diadochokinetic [DDK] rate, and an oral-motor examination), the study examined whether participants exhibited difficulty across all three tasks (consistent with a motor speech disorder), displayed difficulty on the intra-word variability task (inconsistent phonological disorder), or did not exhibit difficulty with any of these three tasks (phonology group). In the case of participants classified in the phonology group, their transcription data were examined to determine whether their errors were usual (phonological delay), unusual (phonological disorder), or restricted to difficulty with /s/ and /r/ (articulation).

Categorization using strict criteria was unsuccessful leading to alternative approaches to categorization. Focusing primarily on two tasks, DDK and intra-word variability, there was support for a motor speech group (n = 15), an inconsistent phonological group (n = 18), and a phonological delay group (n = 26). One participant was classified as having an articulation disorder, and no participant was classified as having a consistent phonological disorder.

Findings with French-speaking children provide mixed support for current SSD classification systems. Results were consistent with alternative categorizations of SSD that posit three groupings (motor speech, inconsistent phonological, and phonological) or with studies that document a continuum of severity on the phonological-motor speech continuum.