Speech and Language Skills of Parents of

Children with Speech Sound Disorders

Barbara A. Lewis, Lisa A. Freebairn, Amy J. Hansen, Lara Miscimarra, Sudha K. Iyengar, H.

Gerry Taylor

Emily Marshall

To determine whether or not a parent’s history of speech sound disorders affects their children

To determine the residual effects of speech sound disorders that carry over into adulthood

Purpose of the study

147 parents ◦ 36 parents reported being enrolled in speech

therapy as a child◦ 12 of those parents had speech and language

problems The children of these parents ranged from

4-6 years old◦ Moderate to severe speech sound disorder◦ No hearing impairments◦ Normal speech mechanism◦ No neurological disorders◦ Normal intelligence

Participants

Parents were tested in the following areas:◦ Speech sound production

Multisyllabic Word Repetition Task Tongue Twister Task

◦ Phonological processing skills Nonsense Word Repetition Task Pig Latin task

◦ Spelling skills Test of Written Spelling

◦ Reading skills Subtests of Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests

◦ Language skills CELF

◦ Oral motor skills Time-by-Count Test of Diadochokinetic Syllable Rate

Methods

Parents with a history of speech sound disorders performed worse than parents with no history of speech or language problems

“modest but significant family aggregation of SSD”

“more significant family aggregation of LI” Speech sound disorders affect a person

throughout his/her lifetime

Results