A Consideration of Various Theoretical and Clinical Problems Pertaining to “Natural Process Analysis”

Abstract

There have been a considerable number of attempts to apply Natural Phonology, either explicitly or not, to the phonological disorders of children. These attempts, whether they are assessment tests or therapeutic programs, are referred to as“Natural Process Analysis”or“Phonological Process Analysis”.This approach has several defects, however, both theoretical and clinical. In this article I discuss a number of problems pertinent to Natural Process Analysis from the standpoint of linguistics. First, a brief outline of Natural Phonology is provided, followed by an examination based upon phonology. Second, one functionally-disordered system is presented for which Natural Process Analysis fails to give a plausible account, thus illustrating that there is a limitation to this analysis. Finally, on the basis of the discussion, rough guidelines are presented for clinical application of Natural Process Analysis.