OBJECTIVETo explore the clinical characteristic of functional articulation disorders in children and provide more evidence for differential diagnosis and speech therapy.

METHODS172 children with functional articulation disorders were grouped by age. Children aged 4-5 years were assigned to one group, and those aged 6-10 years were to another group. Their phonological samples were collected and analyzed.

RESULTSIn the two groups, substitution and omission (deletion) were the mainly articulation errors in these children, dental consonants were the main wrong sounds, and bilabial and labio-dental were rarely wrong. In age 4-5 group, sequence according to the error frequency from the highest to lowest was dental, velar, lingual, apical, bilabial, and labio-dental. In age 6-10 group, the sequence was dental, lingual, apical, velar, bilabial, labio-dental. Lateral misarticulation and palatalized misarticulation occurred more often in age 6-10 group than age 4-5 group and were only found in lingual and dental consonants in two groups.

CONCLUSIONMisarticulation of functional articulation disorders mainly occurs in dental and rarely in bilabial and labio-dental. Substitution and omission are the most often occurred errors. Lateral misarticulation and palatalized misarticulation occur mainly in lingual and dental consonants.