A softening defect is a constant, regularly repeated replacement of soft consonants by the corresponding hard pairs and vice versa. Defects in softening and hardness are more common in the structure of age-related tongue-tied tongue, dyslalia, dysarthria, and hearing loss. In the course of diagnostics, the state of hearing, the structure and mobility of the articulatory apparatus, sound pronunciation, and auditory differentiation are examined. The specifics of speech therapy work depends on the type and cause of the defect, including the development of a basic articulation pattern, the development of phonemic processes, and the development of differentiation between hard and soft phonemes.
Defects in hardness and softness can cover any pair of sounds that differ in this feature. The lack of sound pronunciation may affect all speech phonemes (total) or only some (partial). According to their mechanism, hardness / softness disorders are phonetic-phonemic (with impaired articulation and auditory perception) or purely phonemic (with impaired auditory differentiation):
The development of a softening defect is predisposed by the lack of formation of phonemic processes and speech kinesthesia in a child, a decrease in physical hearing, disturbances in the structure of the articulation organs, and a change in the tone of the articulatory muscles. According to their psychological and pedagogical characteristics, such children belong to the FFN or ONR group.
Softening (palatalization) of consonants or the replacement of soft phonemes with hard ones is considered normal in physiological dyslalia. All children in their speech development go through a stage of age-related tongue-tiedness, due to the insufficient formation of the movements of the organs of articulation and phonemic hearing. A softened pronunciation is more common, but a defect in hardness is also possible. Approximately by the age of 4.5-5 years, as the phonetic-phonemic processes improve, the defects in sound pronunciation disappear.
Defects in softening and hardness are characteristic of functional (acoustic-phonemic, articulatory-phonemic) and mechanical dyslalia. The direct producing factors are:
With unjustified palatalization of consonants, children's speech becomes “lisping”: “clippers” instead of “slippers”, “demik” instead of “house”. In the absence of mitigation, speech loses its smoothness, length, and melody. The child says “tota” instead of “aunt”, “lubla” instead of “love”. With dyslalia, polymorphic combined violations of sound pronunciation are often found, for example, sigmatism + rotacism + softening defect.
With dysarthria, a defect in softness or hardness may be due to increased tone (spasticity) or paresis of the tongue, hyperkinesis. At the same time, the high tone of the muscles of the middle third of the back of the tongue causes softening of hard consonants (pseudobulbar dysarthria), and paresis and lethargy cause the disappearance of palatalization (bulbar dysarthria). Similar violations are also observed with erased, cerebellar dysarthria.
Decreased biological hearing - congenital or early developed hearing loss in children - makes it difficult to perceive the speech of others and auditory control over one's own sound production. In hearing-impaired children, the softening defect is often combined with a voicing defect, sigmatism, rotacism, and parasigmatism. The monotony and nasality of the voice is noted.
Articulation gymnastics
Speech therapy diagnostics should solve the following tasks: finding out the cause of the softening defect and determining the range of accompanying speech disorders that need to be corrected. Given the alleged etiological factors, the child may need to consult a pediatric neurologist, orthodontist, otolaryngologist. The survey plan includes:
Defects in hardness and softness are inevitably reflected in writing. In the process of schooling, children with such uncorrected problems are diagnosed with acoustic dysgraphia. Therefore, speech therapy classes must begin at the senior preschool age. The individual route depends on the type of violation.
If the palatalization of consonants is due to the high muscle tone of the back of the tongue, work must begin with relieving tension in its muscles. At the first stage, a relaxing massage of the tongue is performed with an emphasis on the middle part, articulatory gymnastics (exercises “Shovel”, “Punish a naughty tongue”, “Let's chew a pear” - “chewing” medical syringe No. 1, stroking the tongue with lips).
With softening and weakness of the muscles of the tongue, on the contrary, the efforts of the speech therapist should be aimed at activating the lingual muscles. They resort to activating speech therapy massage and exercises (“Slide”, “Reel”, biting the tongue with teeth). In both cases, attention is paid to the development of soft motor skills and speech breathing.
The differences between hard and soft consonants are explained to the child, the main distinguishing features of sounds are played out. Exercises are used to distinguish quasi-homonyms, show articulation profiles, work with paired pictures for mixed sounds. At this stage, it is important to develop visual and kinesthetic control in the child.
For the production of sounds, techniques of imitation and explanation, a mechanical method are used. Different authors offer a different sequence of working out sounds with a softening defect. The most common scheme: anterior-lingual, labio-dental, labial, whistling, sonora. In parallel, the differentiation of non-palatalized and palatalized consonants is carried out, both by ear and in pronunciation.
The medical unit is connected in case of violations of innervation. It includes drug therapy, physiotherapy, reflexology, exercise therapy, hydroprocedures. For hearing-impaired children, for the successful correction of phonetic and phonemic defects and the correct development of speech, hearing aids are indicated.