The articulation screening process begins during the kindergarten and first elementary grades. The screening is a broad sweeping attempt to identify children with articulation, or pronounciation, problems.

The screening process uses dialogues between the tester and the child to observe articulation, overall language function, voice quality and speech fluency. Because of many childrensO shyness towards testers it is often necessary to test several times, gathering information from small speech samples.

The most common articulation errors identified are distortions and substitutions for /S/,/Z/,W/L, and W/R.

Because most children do grow out of their articulation disorders, the best screening test can ideally distinguish between those who will simply out grow their problems and those who need remediation. This is usually accomplished, as in the Van Reper and Erickson test, by applying qualitative scores to different misarticulations then giving a cut off point for those who need clinical help.

If a problem is identified during the screening process a child will be referred to a SLP for a full speech evaluation.

These settings are very relaxed, many times looking like playrooms. There the child can communicate dialogues with the SLP or his/her parents. This once again tells the SLP about voice language and fluency.

Audiometric or hearing and listening screening is also part of every articulatory evaluation.

A peripheral oral evaluation gives the SLP information about the childOs oral structure and function such as sensory deficits, structural defects, and faulty movements of articulation and resonance structures.

After a thorough phonological assessment, the SLP selects which sounds most need remediation. Generally, only one pronounciation, called a target behavior, is focused on at a time. There are three basic stages of remediation.

In the first stage, establishment, the goal is to facilitate correct pronounciation of the targeted sound. In most cases the targeted behavior is worked on in isolation or in syllables. In the second stage, transfer, the target behavior is carried from a simple to more complex linguistic context. Maintenance, the final stage, concentrates on retention of the target behavior. Reinforcers are gradually faded and self-monitoring becomes a greater focus.

In order to best track the childOs progress, goals are stated in quantitative terms. For example, Oto correctly pronounce /w/ following the SLPOs model with 90% accuracyO is a preferable goal to Oto say /w/O. In addition to training correct pronounciation, many experts believe that children should be taught to discriminate between correct and incorrect pronounciation. It is believed that this will improve their self-monitoring. Often a regimen of oral motor exercises is outlined for the child to facilitate proper positioning of articulatory structures during speech.

Positive reinforcers, ranging from a simple smile to a complex token economy, are used to make the child want to perform the target behaviors and make therapy sessions more enjoyable. Whatever happens to be pleasing for an individual child usually makes an adequate reinforcer.

Once a target behavior is successfully maintained, another misarticulation can be remediated.

In addition to individual therapy, many SLPs are involved in the ongoing research of articulation disorders. By studying the problem in an experimental setting a great deal can be learned which can then be used to increase the effectiveness of future remediation.

For example, several studies have been conducted which show that there is a connection between an individualOs memory and his/her speech. Memory is aided by a phonological neural loop which consists of two components. One part is the brief speech based store that holds a memory which fades within about two seconds. The second part is the articulatory control process that maintains the material in store by a recycling process. Because of the latter component, an observed developmental increase in memory span could be explained in terms of an increase in the efficiency of the articulation rate instead of an increase in memory space.

In relation to memory and speech, the studies have also connected speech related processes as the central determinants of reading differences. Vocabulary development is very closely related to phonological encodings and phonological storage in the working memory. Since phonological mechanisms in the working memory are linked to reading, phonological deficiencies are strongly associated with reading disabilities. Phonological deficit is the core problem in dyslexia or poor reading.

In these experiments poor readers especially had difficulties with phonological tasks involving the detection of rhyme and alliteration. Subjects with reading disabilities also had difficulties in dealing with phonemic segmentation and phonetic clusters.

In conclusion, poor readers had relatively slower speech rate performance than their age-matched controlled group. This could be a very important element when trying to teach young children how to read. Many people do not associate poor speech with poor reading, but studies have shown that they are closely related and should be carefully considered. The children would benefit greatly if they received speech therapy for their speech disorders prior to, or at the same time, as they learn to read. By remediating the speech disorders, the reading disorders may also be remediated. In the future, if this data holds up to further study it will likely become a consideration in the screening, diagnosis and treatment of articulation disorders in children.