Perception-production relationship in children with phonological disorder during speech therapy

Purpose  To compare and correlate accuracy in perception of others’, self-perception, and speech production in children with phonological disorder during speech therapy.

Methods  Sixteen children participated in a phonological intervention program comprising four stages: perception of the therapist’s speech (perception of others), perception of their own speech (self-perception), and target and probe word production. Performance in each stage was analyzed using percentage accuracy, followed by comparison and correlation analyses.

Results  Performance differed between perceptual skills and speech production. Positive correlations were found between perception of others and target word production, and between self-perception and target and probe word production.

Conclusion  Perceptual accuracy precedes production accuracy. Higher perceptual performance is associated with better speech production outcomes. The correlation between self-perception and untrained words supports targeting this skill to enhance generalization and therapeutic effectiveness.

Keywords:
Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences; Speech Sound Disorder; Speech Therapy; Speech Perception; Speech Production Measurement