Speech Training for Defective Children
- Author:
Eileen C. Macleod
Article Two There is a very high percentage of speech-defects among defective child- ren, which is, of course, not surprising, since the production of speech is a very highly complicated process, taking the normal child many months or even years to learn, and requiring a good deal of mental concentration, accurate observation, good memory, a quick ear, and well-developed muscular control, qualities which most defective children possess to a very limited degree. How- ever, it is possible to do something to improve matters by giving exercises to develop these qualities as far as possible. You will notice that some of the requirements are mental and others muscular, for speech is a combination of mental and muscular activity. It is well to bear in mind that the child’s capacity for fluent speech is limited by his capacity to think logically, and therefore if the thought-process is slow, and faltering, or spasmodic and uncontrolled, the speech will be the same. Thus it is necessary to take a wide view of the speech processes when planning a course of speech-training exercises for defective children.
When a defective child is placed under the care of a trained teacher, or enters a school or institution, it is important that a thorough investigation be made into the child’s understanding of speech, and of his capacity for using speech. This investigation takes time and skill, but is very well worth while, as it often brings to light various facts which might otherwise pass unnoticed. In order to test the response to the spoken word carefully, it is necessary to eliminate any gesture or facial expression which might convey information to the child visually. I advise starting with various sounds behind the child’s back, such as a buzzer, bell, mallet, cuckoo, whistle, followed by humming. Note especially which sound causes the quickest and which the slowest reaction. Repeat the sound which evoked the quickest response, gradually increasing the distance or decreasing the strength of the sound, until the minimum is reached ?take careful notes, and repeat the procedure after an interval of a day or so. These tests are for general aural acuity.
To proceed to voice and pitch, take various widely different vowel sounds, such as ah, ee, and oh, keep the pitch the same, and see whether the child can distinguish them when he does not see the speaker’s mouth. Here it is as well to urge the child to attempt to copy the sounds; then try the same vowel sound (the one he recognises best) on various pitches, high and low at first, then perhaps three or four different ones. This is to test for quality discrimination, and recognition of different pitches. It is also useful to turn on a gramophone record of speech, the gramophone being hidden, and watch the effect on the child; try a record of a woman’s voice and then a man’s voice. Most defective children react to music, even if not to speech, and will often show that they recognise a difference between tunes; but this is often recognised by the change of rhythm rather than by any distinction of pitch or melody, although some defective children have a very highly developed ear for melody, and can hum tunes accurately after hearing them only two or three times.
All the foregoing tests are to determine what the child hears, rather than how much he understands. This is accomplished by taking a well-known object such as a shoe, a sweet, a spoon, etc,, which a normal child might be expected to recognise instantly?say the name of each object clearly and dis- tinctly twice as it is placed before the child; then hold out your hand for the child to give you the one you name, but take care not to look straight at the correct object. If this simple test of word-association is successful, one can pass to more complicated objects, or pictures of objects, various simple commands such as “open your mouth,” “shut your eyes,” etc., fetching things?gradually introducing more advanced grammatical forms. Remember that gestures must not be used to help the child to understand. It is as well to carry out all these tests in as quiet a manner as possible so that the child is not made nervous and no other child should be present?only the tester, the child and a third person sitting quite still and silently taking iiotes. Do not attempt too much at once as such tests require a great deal of concentration, and are tiring for defective children.
Having determined roughly the degree of speech-understanding, the next step is to find out how far the child can imitate accurately the various sounds necessary for English speech; it does not matter whether the vowels are tried first or the consonants, or whether they are taken indiscriminately, the import- ant point is to see that all the sounds are tested, and those readers who have some phonetic training will have no difficulty in grouping the various sounds suitably, passing from the simpler to the more complicated.
For the benefit of those who have not any knowledge of the phonetic structure of English, I give a list of the sounds which are used in educated Southern English, using a system of key words instead of phonetic symbols. The Sounds of Educated Southern English Single Vowels
ee as in meet a as in mad aw as in awe mid ah ? ? calm u ? ? put met o ? ? cot 00 ,, ? boot uh ? ? up er ? ? her (no r pronounced) er ? ? tfbove, Chin#, ever (no r pronounced) Diphthongs (two vowel sounds, articulated as a continuous glide from one to the other.) ei as in day ou ? ? home ai ? ? my, high au ? ? house, cow, oy ? ? hoy, noise ear ? ? fear, mere (no r pronounced) air ? ? air, there ? ? or ? ? more, door ? ? ur ? ? poor, sure ? ? Vowel-Glides y as in yes w ? ? we MENTAL WELFARE Consonants p as in pat r as in run, merry (not trilled) b ? ? ?at 1 ? ? wi// | (These are different m ? ? mat 1 ? ? let | from each other) t ? ? to h ? ? he, hot d ? ? do ch ? ? church n ? ? no j ? ? judge k ? ? cow, ^itten tr ? ? tree g ? ? g-ood dr ? ? dry ng ? ? sing ts ? ? cats th ? ? th’m dz ? ? beads th ? ? then and such combinations as f ? ? fee skr in screw v ? ? raw str ? y/rength s ? ? see spl ? splendid z ? ? ^rone, seai” sh ? ? shoe zh ? ? measure
Careful note should be taken of any sounds which are incorrectly articu- lated, or which call for great effort, and of course, any that are missing; also sounds which do not actually occur in English may be used in an attempt to produce a sound which the child has not ” heard ” correctly; for example it is not unusual to find the Welsh 11 (in reality an / made without voice) or a German ch (whispered y) used instead of an s.
It will be seen that up to now no attempt has been made to teach the child any sounds or words, the sole object has been to ascertain his present attainment in the field of speech and sound recognition and production. Unless this is carefully done much time may be wasted on attempting the impossible, or in teaching the more difficult sounds before the child has mastered the simpler ones
In considering the method to be employed in developing speech in defective children, we cannot do better than follow as closely as possible the manner in which normal children acquire the faculty of speech, but naturally it is necessary to simplify, slow-down and magnify each step.
The first essential is practice in listening to sounds so that the child’s ear may be trained to distinguish one from the other, and to register mental im- pressions of the various sounds which have to be used as patterns when the child tries to make the sound himself.
This listening-practice should be immediately followed by practice in making the sound or sounds which have been given, so that a firm link is forged between aural impression and oral expression. Most children are natural mimics, and defective children within their individual capacities, are no exception to this rule, therefore this is one of the best ways of focussing attention on sounds.
At first it is best to practice single sounds, vowels and consonants, but as the children become proficient in reproducing these accurately one may pass on to syllables such as pa, be, too, so, ess, op, to dissyllables, aba, atee, eeso, amay, etc., and thence to more complicated combinations of vowels and double consonants. It is advisable that this practice shall be wholly composed of nonsense ” words, as the object is to concentrate on sounds, entirely apart from meaning.
To exercise the voice and ear for pitch, take a vowel, ah, or ee, first with a rising pitch, then falling, then fall-rise, rise-fall, and finally various level pitches. In order to hold the children’s attention it is useful to vary this by doing the same exercise with a voiced consonant instead of a vowel?z (buzz- ing of a fly on the window), m (a lift), or v are all suitable. These are all exercises in sliding up and down the scale; for stepping up and down choose sounds like B, D, G, L, where there is a distinct movement of lips or tongue to be made as the pitch changes; this is a good exercise for precision of articula- tion. There are many more exercises I could mention for developing the mechanical side of speech, but I am sure my readers will have no difficulty in working out others to suit individual requirements.
I advise that all defective children should have five or ten minutes ear and sound drill each day, as it is extremely good training in concentration and muscular co-ordination; those children who can produce the sounds easily and accurately, can combine this with marching or rhythmic exercises, clapping, etc., whilst those who have great difficulty must keep to the simpler sounds. Even if it seems that the mental capacity of the child is so low that the intelli- gent use of sounds to form language is out of the question, practice in listening to and making sounds is not waste of time, because it is a means of attracting and holding the child’s attention. It is encouraging to notice, perhaps after weeks of inertia, a low-grade child’s attempts to copy a sound which the others have been making daily, and little by little he may acquire a repertoire ?f 4j 5 or more sounds instead of the single grunt he possessed before; surely a great advance in control.
To conclude, may I sum up the various points of importance. I- Investigate thoroughly and systematically the child’s capacity of sound recognition, sound production, understanding of spoken word. Develop along natural lines?ear-training, sound-drill, word-association; using wherever possible actual objects, daily necessities, rather than pictures.
3. Capacity for using speech intelligently is determined by mental capacity. This can be used to the fullest extent only when mechanical difficulties are removed, so that the limited capacity of the child is not divided between the thought-process and the actual articulation of the sounds. 4. Ear-training and sound-production exercises are stimulating and should be part of the daily routine of all defective children, even of low-grade defectives.
Proceed slowly, introducing new sounds gradually.
6. Do not teach the alphabet or names of the letters, use the sounds only. I feel I must apologise for the complete absence of literary style from this article, but when one is concerned with so living a thing as speech and speech- sounds, it is almost impossible not to express one’s thoughts in conversational form; therefore I hope that my literary deficiencies may be forgiven, and the article read as if it were a talk on the subject.
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