Speech Language Pathology (SLP)

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ARTICULATION AND PHONOLOGY

As children grow and develop, they are learning to make new sounds. Just like learning any new skill, there are common errors that occur. A speech sound disorder occurs when these mistakes or patterns continue past the age when the sounds should be made correctly. An articulation disorder is incorrectly making a sound while a phonological disorder is when errors occur with sound patterns.

Speech production involves thinking of what you want to say and coordinating your breathing with the movement of the mouth. In some cases, the brain may have problems planning the movement of the jaw, lips, and tongue to produce speech. The child may know what he or she wants to say but has difficulty coordinating the movement necessary to say those words. This is called Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS). In other cases, there is weakness in the muscles of the mouth, face, and respiratory system which is called dysarthria. 

Fluency is the rhythm of our speech. Disfluencies are the interruption in our rhythm. Everyone exhibits disfluencies in his or her speech. There is a range of disfluencies including more typical, e.g. hesitations, fillers (like, um) and less typical, e.g., blocks, sound repetition. When these disfluencies impact our ability to effectively communicate they are considered a disorder. Fluency disorders include stuttering and cluttering. 

Voice is the use of our breathing and vocal folds to produce sound. Change in vocal quality can occur for many different reasons, such as colds, allergies, or yelling at a sporting event. When a change in voice such as hoarseness or breathiness persists, a more serious issue can be the cause.  An otorhinolaryngologic specialist (ENT) is often referred in order to rule out any structural or functional causes and speech therapy is initiated to treat the voice.  

We use language to communicate with the world around us by expressing our thoughts and emotions, making sense of complex and abstract ideas, fulfilling our wants and needs, as well as establishing rules and maintaining our culture. Expressive language is our use of language including speaking and writing. Receptive language is our comprehension of what we hear or read.

Pragmatic language is our social use of language. Pragmatic language involves three major communication skills: using language for different purposes, changing language given your listener or situation, and following rules for conversation and storytelling. This includes not only what we say but how we say it as well as our gestures and expressions. 

In order to navigate through the day, children and adults use their executive function skills. Executive function is a set of mental processes that help connect previous experience with the present action. People use it to perform activities such as planning, organizing, attending to new information, remembering details, and managing time and space. As a child develops, there are different expectations for the acquisition and use of these skills at home and in the classroom. 

Feeding is the act of gathering food in order to suck, chew, or swallow it. When children begin to eat, they learn to use their jaw, lips, and tongue. They learn to close their lips to clear the spoon or fork, sip from a straw or cup, and move their jaw and tongue to chew. Once the food is in their mouth the act of swallowing beings. If there is difficulty or interruption with any of these skills a disorder can occur. These include but are not limited to food falling out of mouth, aversion to tastes, textures, or temperatures, gagging, choking, coughing, and/or recurrent pneumonia.