The interaction between awareness of one' s own speech disorder with linguistics variables: distinctive features and severity of phonological disorder

Abstract

PURPOSE: To analyze the possible relationship among the awareness of one' s own speech disorder and some aspects of the phonological system, as the number and the type of changed distinctive features, as well as the interaction among the severity of the disorder and the non-specification of distinctive features. METHODS: The analyzed group has 23 children with diagnosis of speech disorder, aged 5:0 to 7:7. The speech data were analyzed through the Distinctive Features Analysis and classified by the Percentage of Correct Consonants. One also applied the Awareness of one' s own speech disorder test. The children were separated in two groups: with awareness of their own speech disorder established (more than 50% of correct identification) and without awareness of their own speech disorder established (less than 50% of correct identification). Finally, the variables of this research were submitted to analysis using descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS: The type of changed distinctive features weren' t different between the groups, as well as the total of changed features and the severity disorder. However, a correlation between the severity disorder and the non-specification of distinctive features was verified, because the more severe disorders have more changes in these linguistic variables. CONCLUSION: The awareness of one' s own speech disorder doesn' t seem to be directly influenced by the type and by the number of changed distinctive features, neither by the speech disorder severity. Moreover, one verifies that the greater phonological disorder severity, the greater the number of changed distinctive features.