Language Chart
Andrea Schindler created this wonderful handout for determining when a sound pattern is due to a language difference (and not a disorder). Andrea has listed the sounds in English and the sounds for several commonly spoken languages in San Diego Unified. This will help you determine whether or not a sound occurs in both languages. For instance, as you can see on the chart, Vietnamese does not include the theta sound. If a child who speaks Vietnamese did not use theta, we would respect that as a difference and treatment would not be warranted. However, if a child who speaks Vietnamese does not produce the /l/ sound, we would treat the sound because it occurs in both Vietnamese and English.
In addition to this resource, there are two helpful websites in particular with similar information for other languages. Please visit Phonemic Inventories Across Languages at ASHA and The Speech Accent Archive. We also highly recommend Dr. Sharynne McLeod's book, The International Guide to Speech Acquisition, available from Amazon.
Click here to download the Language Chart.