Children's articulation training series popular science - Don't say "baby" as "aoao"

Today, we will introduce a type of articulation error that is manifested as the omission of initial consonants. Some children say "baobao" as "aoao", which means that the initial consonant /b/ in the sound /bao/ is omitted when pronouncing it, and only the final sound /ao/ is pronounced.

Want to know how to say it correctly? First, let's take a look at the pronunciation position and pronunciation method of the /b/ sound!

The pronunciation place /b/ is a bilabial sound. As the name suggests, the main parts involved in pronunciation are our upper and lower lips, and the lips need to be tightly closed when pronouncing.

The pronunciation of /b/ is a stop consonant, which means that a blocked state must be formed before the sound can be pronounced. When pronouncing it, the soft palate rises first, the air flows through the mouth, and the upper and lower lips close to form an obstruction. The airflow accumulates in the mouth, and after the airflow continues to strengthen, it breaks through the obstruction and presents an explosive pronunciation.

After understanding the pronunciation position and pronunciation method of /b/, we can find that its most important pronunciation feature is that it requires the closure of the lips. We can then analyze that the main reason why children miss the /b/ sound is that the lips do not close when pronouncing it. Therefore, the first task of training is to help children understand the pronunciation position required for the /b/ sound, that is, the lips are tightly closed. Then, according to the children's speech acquisition rules, from single vowel single syllable → double vowel single syllable → disyllabic (front) → trisyllable (front) → disyllabic (back) → trisyllable (back) → trisyllable (middle) → sentence consolidation, gradually let children master the acquisition.

Rehabilitation treatment program

01 Pronunciation induction training to promote lip closure

Children who miss the /b/ sound often have weak lip muscles. The following training movements can help enhance lip perception, improve lip muscle strength, and promote the establishment of lip closure movement patterns.

1. Parents can use their thumbs to press the orbicularis oris muscle around the lips with a little force, keep pressing for 3-5 seconds, and repeat 5-10 times. This can not only enhance the lip perception, but also try to help children close their lips together and make passive lip closure movements.

2. Parents can evenly spread yogurt, jam and other sticky liquids that children like on the spoon, and let the children put it into their mouths with their lips, repeating several times until they can complete the action well. It should be noted that when practicing this action, some children will use their teeth instead of lips to put food into their mouths. At this time, they should be reminded to wrap their lips around the spoon. If the child still cannot understand or cannot do it, parents can gently press the spoon against the child's upper teeth to reduce the compensatory action.

3. After the children can complete the above movements well, guide them to try to purse their lips tightly and then quickly release them to produce a sound, that is, to do a lip-smacking action (10 times/group, 5-10 groups).

4. After the child can complete the above training well, you can start practicing the original sound of /b/, that is, the vocal cords do not vibrate.

02 Articulation and speech training

After successfully establishing the lip closure movement pattern, we can start phoneme acquisition training. In phoneme acquisition training, we should first practice the combination of initial consonants and single vowels. We generally follow the rule from easy to difficult, that is, first practice /target phoneme + single vowel/, then practice /target phoneme + complex vowel/, and finally practice /target phoneme + nasal vowel/.

The following practice materials can be shown to children in the form of pictures to help them understand and apply them.

For children who miss the /b/ sound, we may find that some children have the ability to close their lips tightly and make the lip-closing action before pronunciation, but their pronunciation is still unclear. This is because they do not store the airflow in the mouth when closing their lips or the lip-closing action is not coordinated with the aspiration pronunciation when pronouncing. In other words, the pronunciation and lip-closing action are not combined. When pronouncing, the lips are loosened first, and the airflow flows out when pronouncing the final, so naturally the /b/ sound is not produced.

So how should we guide children to master pronunciation in such a situation? Parents can first explain to children that they need to hold their breath when closing their lips, and then let the air flow break through the lip barrier to form pronunciation. Then they can try to let them do the action of closing their lips and holding their breath, such as gently puffing up their cheeks before pronouncing, or pinching their lips with their fingers and letting go after the sound is made. This will allow them to experience that when pronouncing the /b/ sound, the air flow accumulated in the mouth breaks through the lip barrier instead of loosening the lips by itself when pronouncing. When doing this kind of guided practice, we can choose /bu/ or /bo/ so that the lip movement amplitude is small. After puffing up the cheeks and holding the breath, you only need to exhale the air flow to successfully pronounce. This helps children gain a sense of accomplishment and build self-confidence, and increase their interest in articulation practice. Of course, parents should also give timely encouragement after successful pronunciation, such as saying "You got it right, you are great" in an excited tone and clapping the children to celebrate, etc.

After the children have mastered the pronunciation of all monosyllables, we can start practicing in the order of disyllable (front) → trisyllable (front) → disyllable (back) → trisyllable (back) → trisyllable (middle) → sentence consolidation, helping children learn the pronunciation of /b/ through repeated reinforcement.

Note: Disyllabic (front) means the target sound is located in the front syllable in the middle, such as the target sound /bo/ in the word "wave" is located in the front syllable of the disyllabic. The same applies to other words.

According to the development of children's articulation ability, generally speaking, a three-year-old child should have completely learned the pronunciation of /b/. If a child is found to have not mastered it after this age and has long-term articulation errors, he should go to the hospital in time to seek help from professionals and receive articulation training.

Author: Shen Xinyi, Yang Shanshan

The popular science content of this platform has been funded by the China Association for Science and Technology's Science Popularization Department's 2022 National Science Literacy Action Project "National Society Science Popularization Capacity Improvement Project-Rehabilitation Science Popularization Service Capacity Improvement Action Plan"