Identification of obstruent contrasts by children with and without phonological disorders.

Purpose: (1) To compare auditory-perceptual accuracy and reaction time in children with and without phonological disorders for identifying the contrast of obstruents, and (2) to verify whether there is an effect of the phonetic class (stops vs. fricatives) on the accuracy, reaction time and error pattern.

Methods: Sixty-two children (41 diagnosed with phonological disorders and 21 with typical phonological development), aged between 4 and 9 years, participated in the study. An identification task was performed in the obstruent class using the speech perception assessment instrument (PERCEFAL). Reaction time, percentage of correct and incorrect answers, and the error pattern were considered in the analysis. Results: Regarding auditory-perceptual accuracy, children with phonological disorders had a significantly lower average of correct answers than children with typical phonological development for both obstruent classes. Regarding reaction time, children with phonological disorders showed longer reaction times for the stop class (p≤0.05). In the error pattern analysis, errors involving the articulatory point were the most frequent for both classes and both groups of children.

Conclusion: The presence of phonological disorders implies attenuated perceptual accuracy. The longer reaction time of children with phonological disorders depends on the phonic class.