For most speakers, the sounds “m”, “n” and “ng” are produced with nasal airflow. All the other speech sounds in English are usually produced with airflow through the mouth. The soft palate moves upwards and backwards to close off the nasal passage for non-nasal sounds and is at rest for the other sounds. The closure of the soft palate cannot be viewed by looking in the mouth, although the movement of the uvular (dangly bit at the back of the throat!), can be seen, when the child says “Ah”.
A child’s speech may described by others as nasal. “Nasal” speech is often quite complex to assess.
Speech can be hypernasal, which means that there is too much air escaping through the nose when speaking. Nasal air escape may be consistent for all the sounds, or vary for different sounds. Some children only have nasal emission (air escape) on a few sounds.
Speech may be hyponasal, which means that there is too little air escaping from the nose such as when we have a cold and the nose is blocked.
Sometimes there can be a mixed pattern of nasality.
There are various reasons why a child may have one of the above types of nasal speech. It may be due to the co-ordination or movement of the soft palate, the presence of a cleft palate or submucous cleft, enlarged or removed adenoids and sometimes it is an acquired pattern of articulation with no obvious physical cause.
It is important to seek the opinion of a specialist speech and language therapist for an assessment of nasality as the treatment approaches will vary according to the type and extent of the problem.
Contact us to find out more about nasal speech and to discuss how we can support you and your child.