Speech is the verbal means of communicating. Speech skills are in the following categories:
Articulation: The way sounds are made. Children begin to develop making sounds at an early age. (e.g., children must learn to produce the /k/ sound in order to say “car” instead of “tar”).
Children reach developmental milestones by using them in the beginning of words. Eventually, children can use sound combinations that allow them to say sounds in sequences that make up complex words.
Voice: Use of the vocal folds and breathing to produce sound. Vocal abuse can occur from overuse or misuse and can result in hoarseness or loss of voice.
Fluency: The rhythm of speech. Stuttering, hesitations or word retrieval can affect fluency. Children may have speech problems that make it difficult to understand what they are saying, These children may mispronounce sounds that can range from 1 to 2 sounds or many sounds. Speech is considered and intelligible (understood by many different listeners), or unintelligible (can not be understood by family or others)
Language is different from speech
Language is made up of a socially shared rules that include the following concepts:
What words mean (e.g., “cold” can refer to a short illness, or the temperature).
How to make new words (e.g., art, artist, artistic).
How to put words together (e.g., “Can I go outside to play?” instead of “I can go play outside?”
What word combinations are best in certain situations (e.g., social use of language, explaining something, retelling a story, giving an answer to a question).
Language is a code that has five parts that are all different and equally important. These parts are systems that include sounds, word formation, word order, word meaning and actual language use.
When someone has difficulty understanding what others are saying is receptive language. Sharing ideas, thoughts, and feelings in a complete manner is expressive language. Problems in one or both areas would be considered a language disorder.
When a person is unable to produce speech sounds correctly or fluently, or has problems with his or her voice, then he or she has a speech disorder.
Speech and Language Disorders can affect how a child performs in school. A speech and language disorder can impact early literacy skills such as reading development. Written Language skills also require the ability to organize and formulate ideas and put them into sentences and paragraphs.
Speech and Language disorders can occur together or by themselves. The extent of the disorder can be mild, moderate, or severe. A comprehensive evaluation by one of our speech-language pathologists is the first step to improve speech and language difficulties.
Our staff of Speech-Language Pathologists (SLP) are certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
