Sound-Object Associations: The Foundation For Language Perception and Fluency

What are Sound-Object Associations?

We make all sorts of associations in our head. They're the building blocks of memory. Our strongest sense of memory associates with our sense of smell. Like Mom's perfume that one year, until she found a new one. You went on family vacation with her at Jersey Shore, and she used half the bottle for every dinner gathering. Ten years later, if she puts on that perfume, you can't help but feel a strong sense of nostalgia for that vacation; it's so vivid it's as if it were yesterday. Tiny associations create memory. Speech and language development requires a strong memory. Sound-object associations are associations we make with sound. They're quite simple: we hear the noise an object makes more than once and this association becomes engrained in us, like animal sounds.

Children begin learning sound-object associations very young. And as they grow older and experience more of the world, they continue to create these. One of their first associations is the sound of their caregiver's voice (Kjesbo 1).

So Why Are Sound-Object Associations So Important

Sound-Object Associations Help a child learn the environment around him. They make sense of the world every day with them. "The ability to hear, recognize and attach meaning to environmental sounds is a first step toward phonological awareness (the ability to indentify, mix together, break apart, and change around the sounds in words) and literacy" (Kjebo 1). It also aids children in developing both their vocabulary skills and overall comprehension of language. 

As well, different types of sound-object associations help children in increasing their perceptual skills. In other words, the way they perceive the world around them. It can keep them safe, and we can impress these on them. For example, a child hear's a dog growl and is automatically careful around it. Hopefully he didn't find out the hard way, and his parents told him "be careful when a dog growls like that." They associate the sound of a dog growling with the behavior of carefulness. Perceptually-speaking, if they hear a dog on the TV growling, they know they're safe, and won't elicit this behavior. This is why sound-object associations are so important. They are the building blocks of language and properly perceiving the world around one's self. 

Resources

Kjesbo, Rynette R., M.S., CCC-SLP. Super Duper Handy Handouts © 2011: Sound-Object Associations - Knowing What We Hear!