ABSTRACT
'Clinical phonology', is thus concerned with the 'errors' of both children and adults, though there is usually greater emphasis on children, partly because they constitute the majority of patients, and partly because comparisons with normal patterns of acquisition are possible. Considering the complexity of language, the period of normal acquisition is remarkably short. But for a small minority, language does not develop normally: speech may be delayed or retarded, pronunciations do not approximate the adult norm. The patterns of phonological disorder in children lend themselves to two kinds of comparison: the authors may compare first, the child's pronunciation with the adult norm, the 'target' pronunciation. Most articulation tests work on the basis; usually the child is given an 'articulation age' on the basis of his standardized score, and the scores are also used to select the children to be referred for therapy.
