Articulation disorder is a common condition when your child can’t make specific sounds. For example, they may always replace “r” with “w” or “th” with “s.” The disorder isn’t related to any issues with their brain, mouth or hearing. A speech-language pathologist can diagnose the condition and help your child communicate clearly using speech therapy. Most children learn to make all speech sounds by age 4 or 5. Children who have trouble speaking clearly after that age may have a speech sound disorder. One type of speech sound disorder is articulation disorder, which involves problems producing specific speech sounds. Articulation is the process humans go through to produce sounds, syllables and words. A child with articulation disorder may be unable to produce certain sounds or form particular sounds incorrectly. It can make the child’s speech hard to understand and affect socialization and learning. The condition is sometimes called functional speech disorder or articulation delay.
