The Effects of Phonological Processes on the Speech Intelligibility of Young Children

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between occurrence of 10 phonological processes, singly and in groups, with mean percentage of intelligibility of connected speech samples. Participants in the study included 4 adult listeners (3 females, one male) and 46 speakers aged 48 to 66 months (16 females, 30 males). Percentage of occurrence scores for phonological processes (independent variables) were obtained by the administration of The Assessment of Phonological Processes - Revised (Hodson, 1986). Percentage of intelligibility for 100-word connected speech samples (dependent variables) were obtained by orthographic transcription (words understood divided by 100). The single processes showing the strongest negative correlation with intelligibility of connected speech included consonant sequence omission, glide class deficiency, syllable omission, and velar class deficiency, with reliability beyond the .001 level. The combination of consonant sequence omission, syllable omission, nasal class deficiency, and velar class deficiency accounted for 83% of the variance in the dependent variable. In this equation, consonant sequence omission alone accounted for 70% of the variance. Significance is beyond the .05 level for these measures. Results of the study lead to the recommendation that the following phonological processes are high priority targets for remediation: consonant sequence omission, syllable reduction and glide class deficiency, syllable reduction, and velar class deficiency.