Question
Several of my students have articulation differences that are common to their culture. However, not having the sounds makes the student difficult to understand in English. I see a couple of Spanish-speaking children who are hard to understand. They are
Answer
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association states that no dialect may be viewed or treated as a disorder. If the students are having difficulties with sounds which are normal language interference errors, then the SLP must not directly address that child's articulation, i.e., provide therapy. Articulation differences are not disorders. It is expected that all second language learners will experience some articulation errors that may take 2-3 years to correctly say (what Cummins refers to as "oral language" or Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills). A student with an articulation disorder will distort sounds and make sound errors that most second language learners say correctly.
The sounds of "th", "sh, and "j" do not occur in Spanish. It is normal for a Spanish speaking child not to have these sounds in his/her repertoire. The "sh" sound may inadvertently be misarticulated in the final position of syllables or words. Spanish does not contain as many single syllable words as English. In addition, Spanish only allows for final sounds to consist of /r,s,n,d,l/ and vowels. From what you have described these are normal ifferences. Please remember that learning a second language takes time. Children with normally developing articulation skills will acquire these sounds in English. In sum, you may provide suggestions, but it seems that this is the ESL/ESOL teacher's responsibility.
Dr. Alejandro Brice is an international presenter and nationally recognized expert in bilingual speech and language issues. He has 96 publications and has presented 128 papers in China, Finland, Australia, Japan, South Africa, and at numerous national and state conferences. His research has focused on issues of transference or interference between two languages in the areas of phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics related to speech-language pathology. His clinical expertise relates to the appropriate assessment and treatment of Spanish-English speaking students and clients.
