Which statement best differentiates articulation disorder from phonological disorder?

• A. Articulation disorder involves variable sound patterns across words; phonological disorder is a single misarticulated phoneme.
• B. Articulation disorder is the inability to produce a perceptually acceptable version of a specific phoneme in any context, provided there are no phonological errors.
• C. Phonological disorder is a purely motoric limitation.
• D. Both disorders are identical.

Answer: (B)

The difference hinges on whether the difficulty is a motor problem with producing individual sounds or a linguistic pattern problem in how sounds are organized in the language. When a person cannot produce a perceptually acceptable version of a specific phoneme in any context, and there aren’t broader phonological patterns affecting multiple sounds, that points to an articulation disorder. It reflects a motor limitation in producing that one sound, while the rest of the sound system is functioning normally. For example, a child who cannot correctly articulate a single phoneme like /s/ across words, regardless of context, would fit this description.

Phonological disorders, on the other hand, involve patterns of sound errors that reflect knowledge of the sound system and its rules, typically affecting several phonemes in systematic ways (such as fronting, cluster reduction, or stopping). A purely motor limitation would not explain these patterned changes across phonemes.

The other statements mix up these distinctions: articulation disorders are not defined by variable patterns across words, and phonological disorders are not purely motoric; they are about linguistic patterns.