articulation

fluency - stuttering

voice tones - nasal quality, pitch, resonance, volume

phonology - how sounds are combined and changed in a language to alter word meaning

morphology - rules that explain the bits and pieces of the language that form plurals, tenses and part of speech

syntax - word order

semantics -content and meaning given to language sounds

pragmatics - social context

Signs of a possible speech impairment

Makes consistent, age-inappropriate articulation errors

Frequent repetitions, interruptions or prolongations in the flow of speech

Has poor voice qualities in pitch or production

Uses voice volume that is consistently inappropriate to situations

Signs of a possible language impairment

Has an inadequate vocabulary for age or development

Seems unable to convey messages or get points across to others

Appears to have trouble verbalizing / expressing needs

Is unable to follow oral directions

Unable to match letters with sounds when learning to read

Speech and Language sites

WOW...great links

Foundations for Communication disorders

Stuttering home page

General information about communication disorders

Science of stuttering

American Speech-Lanaguage-Hearing Association (ASHA)

Cleft Palate - an infant who is loved

Cleft Palate - information

Speech-Language Pathology World

Early signs of communication disorders

Chapter 8 – Students with Communication Problems Twenty-four million Americans struggle to communicate everyday. Communication problems can affect children and adults, however it affects them differently. There are two different ways a person can be affected, either through language or speech. To get a better understanding of what the problems are and how it affects people, we must get a better understanding of what speech and language are.

Language is defined as a system of symbols communities use to represent their environment, thoughts and emotions. While speech is the physical process involved in producing the sound and sound combinations of a language. So we see that speech and sound are interconnected in a way. Without one you can’t have the other. So lets look at why people have communication problems, what they are and how to help them fix them.

There are two main language disorders that stem from different things. A person will either have aphasia or a developmental language disorder. Those with the aphasia are usually older and have already mastered the language. They become impaired after some sort of traumatic accident where severe trauma affected the brain. This could be a head injury or a stroke or tumor. While the developmental language disorder is usually a child that was born with some sort of brain damage.

As teachers we will be dealing more with noticing and finding treatment for developmental problems. It usually is noticeable between the ages of 12 months to 6 years for those children with a developmental disorder. While we can’t usually find the cause of the deficiency, usually the child’s language difficulty can be characterized into one of a few groups. These are hearing problems, conceptual knowledge, cognitive processes, knowledge of language rules, comprehension of language, production and retrieval of language, communicative functioning or motor skills. These can be assessed by a speech pathologist and work with that trainer to overcome their difficulties.

Teachers and parents can also help in the process by supporting the child and watching the child to see if anything seems particularly hard for that child while at home or in the classroom. There are a lot more types of speech disorders than there are language disorders. Children (and adults) can have articulation disorders, a voice disorder, or a fluency disorder. Each one of these has its own causes and “’cures”, although not every child may completely overcome their disorder.

Articulation disorders can show up in four different forms. Substitution is when a replacement sound is added to a word. This happens when a “w” is used instead of an “r” in rabbit. Omission is when a sound is left out altogether. This happens when the “r” is completely left out and is the word is spoken abbit . Distortion is when a sound not from our language is used, such as the “s” sound that Daffy Duck uses. Last there is Addition, when a sound is added to a word that isn’t supposed to be there such as “atpple” for apple. These can be caused by either something organic or it can be functional.

Functional problems do not have a known cause; it only appears that it is a result of improper learning. Such things as short auditory memory span or phonetic discrimination could also play a part in a child’s ability to communicate correctly. Functional disorders can usually be completely cured. Organic problems do have actual causes. The two most common causes are cleft palate and cerebral palsy. There are surgeries that a person can have with cleft palate to fix some of the physical disorder, but those with cleft palate will most likely always have some sort of speech disorder during their lives. Those that do have these problems can be worked with to help make it easier to communicate with others.

There are a series of test with which they perform to come up with the proper way to help treat such disorders. The tests (assessments) are the articulation test, spontaneous speech sample, stimulability, and phonological process analysis. All of these assessments test different things and help to better narrow down the child’s (or adults) exact problem. A person with this sort of articulation disorder can go into therapy to learn how to correctly speak, although they will probably always struggle in their life to communicate really well.

The next kind of disorder with speech that a teacher must be aware of is problems with the voice. Children with these types of problems probably struggle with emotionally with something. There are three main types of voice disorders to look for. They are pitch disorders, loudness disorders and voice quality defects. These can usually be overcome, but how long it takes depends on the arrangement for treatment. There are many doctors that must be involved along with the parents and teachers to help the child to change the way that their voice sounds. Parents and teachers must be very careful when dealing with voice disorders, it is important that it is figure out whether there is a degenerative disease or not before they begin any vocal rehabilitation.

The last problems that people with speech disorders face are with fluency. There are many types of disfluency that a person can struggle with; stuttering (the most common), developmental disfluency, neurogenic disfluency, psychogenic disfluencies, and language delays. There are many types of treatment for these disorders, but generally a speech pathologist and the parents work together to figure out the best way to attack the disorder. With stuttering it is important that treatment begin right away so that it won’t make a huge impact on the educational development of the child. Those children that show emotionally based disfluencies (psychogenic disfluencies) are usually directed to a counselor or a psychiatrist of some sort so the child can deal with his/her emotions.

All of these communication difficulties can affect a child’s school and social life. With a child in a classroom all day it is imperative that they be able to understand everything that is going on and that they be able to appropriately respond to learning. Some of these disorders can have a harsh effect on the learning process. That is why it is so important that the child be appropriately pointed in the right direction as soon as possible. If the child doesn’t get the right treatment then it could affect his/her adult life.