Purpose
The objective of the present study is to assess the metaphonological skill levels of children with speech sound disorders as a function of age and disorder severity as assessed by the Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization Test (LAC-3 adapted to the Brazilian Portuguese language).
Methods
Fifty children with speech sound disorder between the ages of five years and seven years and 11 months were given three versions (I-A, I-B and II) of the Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization Test and then divided by age and speech sound disorder severity assessed by Percentage Consonants Correct-Revised (PCC-R) scores.
Results
The skills testing results indicate that younger children with 85% PCC-R or less experience greater difficulty than the other children with auditory perception and exhibit more disorganized phonological systems, as shown in their execution of simple metaphonological skills throughout testing, which involve discriminating between isolated phonemic units. The complex task results do not provide sufficient information to determine which cognitive-linguistic knowledge features among children with speech sound disorder are most heavily affected.
Conclusion
The skills testing results indicate that children with more severe speech sound disorder, who thus present higher degrees of phonological system disorganization, experience greater difficulty in the area of auditory perception. The results further indicate that regardless of the degree of disorder severity, children with phonological disorders struggle with more complex metaphonological skills, and those with greater degrees of disorder severity also struggle to master simpler metaphonological tasks.
Auditory perception; Speech; language and hearing sciences; Articulation disorders; Child; Evaluation
