Abstract:
The study sought to identify and describe the articulation and phonological impairments in the speech of 6-14 year old learners of English as a second language in primary school with cerebral palsy. Further the study also established the linguistic interventions employed by the teachers to assist the learners affected by articulation and phonological impairments as a result of cerebral palsy. Optimality theory was used to account for the impairments through mapping of competence and performance vis- a-vis input and outputs as shown in the speech samples of the respondents. Further, error analysis provided the procedural methodology for analysis of the speech samples obtained from the subjects. Data was collected from 27 subjects who were purposively sampled from the school population. For purposes of understanding the levels of severity, the subjects were put into three cohorts. A qualitative design with a triangulation strategy was adopted whereby data obtained from the subjects using picture naming tasks and focus group discussion from the teachers, was put in tables and later followed with explanations. Analysis of the speech samples collected from the subjects show the presence of the articulation impairments that include omissions, substitutions, distortions and insertions. The phonological impairments were consonant deletion, cluster reduction, syllable reduction, fronting deafrication, and stopping. Further, findings in this study show that core vocabulary and articulation therapy were the linguistic interventions employed by teachers to help remedy the impairments in the subjects. The findings of this study would be of importance and significance to three groups namely: parents, teachers and researchers. This study also offers both clinical and theoretical benefits. Clinically, data is urgently needed to inform the assessment, treatment and therapy for articulation and phonological impairments in second language learners with Cerebral Palsy. Theoretically, investigation of different varieties of English allows testing of hypothesis based on English speakers
