PURPOSE: To describe articulatory indexes for the different speech errors and to verify the existence of a preferred type of error in children with speech sound disorder, according to the presence or absence of otitis media history. METHODS: Participants in this prospective and cross-sectional study were 21 subjects aged between 5 years and 2 months and 7 years and 9 months with speech sound disorder. Subjects were grouped according to the presence of otitis media history: experimental group 1 (EG1) with 14 subjects with otitis media history and experimental group 2 (EG2) with seven subjects without otitis media history. The amount of speech errors (distortions, omissions and substitutions) and the articulation indexes were calculated. Data were submitted to statistical analysis. RESULTS: The performances from EG1 and EG2 regarding the indexes were different from each other in both phonological tasks applied. In all analyzes, the indexes evaluating substitutions indicated that this type of error was the most prevalent in children with speech sound disorders. CONCLUSION: The use of indexes was effective to indicate that substitution is the most prevalent type of error in children with speech sound disorders. The greater occurrence of speech errors observed in the picture naming task in children with otitis media history indicates that such errors are possibly associated to difficulties in phonological representation secondary to fluctuating conductive hearing loss.
Child language; Language disorders; Language tests; Otitis media; Evaluation
