ABSTRACT

Purpose : This study aimed to compare speech processing between typically developing children and those with articulation and phonological disorders by examining performance across three stages: input, lexical representations, and output.Methods The participants consisted of 33 typically developing children and 23 children with articulation and phonological disorders, aged 4 to 6. According to the speech processing model, three tasks were carried out: a phonetic discrimination task, a phonological representation judgment task, and a nonword repetition task. Independent t-tests, mixed-design ANOVAs, and Pearson correlations were conducted.Results : The results indicated no significant differences between the groups in the phonetic discrimination task. However, in the phonological representation judgment task, typically developing children performed significantly better than those with articulation and phonological disorders (p < .001). In the nonword repetition task, both groups displayed decreased performance as syllable length increased. Typically developing children consistently outperformed the other group in all syllable conditions (p < .001). Correlation analysis revealed a significant positive relationship between phonetic discrimination and phonological representation judgment, but no significant correlation was found with nonword repetition.Conclusions : The findings indicate that difficulties experienced by children with articulation and phonological disorders may not stem from how they perceive speech input, but rather from weaknesses in their phonological representation and speech programming. This study underscores the importance of assessing speech processing at various stages to guide personalized clinical interventions.