PURPOSE: To describe the severity indexes PCC-R, IRS, IRO, IRD, PDI and SII in children with speech sound disorder with and without the phonological process of devoicing and verify its efficiency in identifying differences among children. METHODS: This is retrospective and cross-sectional study involving 20 children with speech sound disorder between 5 and 8 years-old. Two subgroups were created according to the presence of the phonological process of stops and fricatives devoicing. Phonology test from the infantile language test (ABFW) was used to calculate productivity of phonological processes, the number of different types of phonological processes and the indexes PDI, PCC-R, IRS, IRO and IRD. Speech inconsistency test was applied to calculate the speech inconsistency index. Data were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: The study demonstrated that children with speech sound disorder and the presence of fricative and/or stops devoicing were more severe and presented higher values of the speech inconsistency index, PDI, IRS, IRO and IRD. The articulatory error most observed for both groups was the substitution while distortion occurred more in the group of children without the phonological process of devoicing. CONCLUSION: The severity indexes used were efficient to differentiate children with from children without the presence of the phonological processes of devoicing. There is evidence that children who have the phonological process of devoicing have difficulty with the phonological representation of the sound.
Speech; Language and Hearing Sciences; Child; Evaluation; Articulation disorders; Severity of illness index; Language tests