Videos to prepare for an Emergency

The United States Department of Homeland Security has released several videos to help Americans, including older Americans and individuals with disabilities and special needs, prepare for emergencies. The videos are available at:

http://www.ready.gov/america/about/instructional.html

Check out the rest of the website, also. There is a section for children entitled Ready Kids.

PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES

During the first years of life a child acquires the major portion of the phonological system of language. They learn to control their voices and their vocal mechanisms; to control extremes and variations in pitch and volume; to control resonance (vowels) and constrictions (consonants) and the timing aspects of alternating them. Since motor and speech developments are related, the child must develop the motor skills not only to produce the individual speech sounds but also to combine them rapidly. Therefore, the easier sounds to produce are the first phonemes to appear.

During speech development, phonological processes occur. These are innate alterations of normal adult sounds by the child that are used to simplify the sound system of a language. They are part of normal development, but often worry both parents and teachers. Eventually, the child will eliminate these processes and will acquire the full set of adult sounds. For example, final consonant deletion is when the child deletes the /t/ in "cat" and says, "ca". This process is usually eliminated by 3 1/2 years old. Some of these processes may persist for several more years. For example, the stopping of the fricative "th" is when the child substitutes /d/ for "th" and says, "dem" for "them". This process can still occur after the age of 5. These are only two examples of the many processes children progress through on their way to the adult model of speech. Please remember that each child is unique and has his/her own rate of development. It is only when the child fails to acquire the phoneme or suppress the phonological process within the normal time framework that a speech problem might exist. At that point, further assessment would be recommended.