Auditory-perceptual performance in children with and without phonological disorder in the stops class

Purpose: To compare the auditory-perceptual performance of children with and without phonological disorder (PD) in the identification task of contrasts between stops phonemes. Methods: Information was selected from a database regarding the auditory-perceptual performance of 46 children (23 with a diagnosis of PD with involvement in the stops (G1) and 23 with typical speech development (G2)), aged 4 and eight years old, in an identification task of the class of stops consonants in Brazilian Portuguese, using the speech perception assessment instrument (PERCEFAL). The reaction time, the number of errors and correctness, as well as the pattern of perceptual error were considered in the analysis. Results: Regarding the auditory-perceptual accuracy, T-Test showed a statistically significant difference, in which typical children had a higher average of correctness than children with PD and shorter reaction time for correct answers. Regarding the error pattern, repeated measures ANOVA showed a significant effect for the group and error pattern, but not for the interaction between group and error pattern. Tukey's Post Hoc test showed for both groups that errors involving place of articulation were superior to voicing and voicing + place of articulation errors. Conclusion: children with phonological disorders have worse accuracy in relation to children without disorders and, also, longer response time for correctness. Errors involving the place of articulation between the stops were the most frequent for both groups.