Abstract

GIACCHINI, Vanessa; MOTA, Helena Bolli  and  MEZZOMO, Carolina Lisbôa. Relevant variables in the therapeutic process for the consonant clusters acquisition in the speech of children with phonological disorder. Rev. CEFAC [online]. ahead of print, pp. 0-0.  Epub June 19, 2012. ISSN 1982-0216.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1516-18462012005000049.

PURPOSE: to provide relevant variable aspects in the therapeutic process of consonant clusters (CC) acquisition in children but maintains the CCV simplification. METHOD: four children diagnosed with phonological disorders, aged 5:4 to 7:7 took part in the study, using the strategy of compensatory lengthening, having [r] and [l] in the phonetic inventory and performed to simplify the CC. Children were subjected to different speech therapies, and from data obtained in those we obtained reviews of linguistic and extra-linguistic variables that are relevant for therapy. Data were analyzed using the VARBRUL statistic program. RESULTS: the program selected the variable 'severity’ of the disorder as being relevant for the appropriate production, CC simplification and for the distortion of the CC liquid. There was highlighted the highest possibility of correct production of CCV when the subject is under phonetic therapy. The /d/ phoneme enhances the metathesis strategy. The replacement of the liquid was due to the variable 'subject’ and the kind of liquid forming the CC. CONCLUSION: the variable 'severity’ is very relevant to the success of the therapy as well as to the use of strategies to repair the problem. It was also observed that children who were under different kinds of therapies had different results to each of the therapies and had better performance using the phonetic therapy.

Keywords : Speech Therapy; Articulation Disorders; Speech Acoustics; Phonetics.