Background:
Speech sound errors are often exhibited by children with hearing impairment. Articulatory error pattern analyses show a tendency towards vowel substitutions and consonant omissions. There is a dearth of literature on the articulatory characteristics of Indian children who use digital hearing aids. Such information is crucial for speech language pathologists in correcting articulation errors. Hence this study examined the nature of speech sound errors in Malayalam speaking children with hearing impairment who use digital hearing aids.

Material and methods:
A total of 7 monolingual Malayalam speaking children aged 3–7 years who were diagnosed as having spoken-language disorder secondary to congenital hearing impairment (> 70 dB HL bilaterally) were analysed. Frequently misarticulated vowels and consonants were ascertained from recorded speech samples. Additional error analysis was performed based on error type and the place, manner, and voicing features of the consonants.

Results:
The short vowel /u/ and long vowel /i:/ were found to be the most frequently misarticulated vowels. The most frequently misarticulated consonants were trills (/r/), affricates (/ʤ/, /ʧ/), and fricatives (/ʂ/, /ʃ/). Substitution errors were the most common error type. Place–manner errors and place errors were more frequent than other types of errors.

Conclusions:
Targeting frequently misarticulated speech sounds supports effective intervention, leading to improved speech intelligibility in children with hearing impairment.