SpeechLanguage Impairments

1
Speech/Language Impairments

• Communication Disorders

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Purposes of Communication Interactions

• Communication of Needs/Wants
• Message Content important
• Predictability of Vocabulary high
• Rate of Communication important
• Accuracy important
• Information Transfer
• Message Content important
• Predictability of Vocabulary not
• Rate of Communication important
• Accuracy important

3
Purposes of Communication Interactions

• Social Closeness
• Message Content not important
• Predictability of Vocabulary somewhat
• Rate of Communication not important (usually)
• Accuracy may not
• Social Etiquette
• Message Content not important
• Predictability of Vocabulary highly
• Rate of Communication important
• Accuracy important

4
Definitions

• Communication disorders include both speech
  disorders and language disorders
• SPEECH
• Normal development of speech speech is the
  systematic use of sounds and sound combinations
  to produce meaningful words, phrases, and
  sentences.
• Phonation the production or generation of sound
• Resonation modification of the sound by the
  mouth and nasal cavities
• Articulation final movements of the mouth,
  lips, tongue, jaw, and soft palate
• Phonemes meaningful units of sound that are
  used in constructing speech

5
Definitions

• Learning Phonemes of Language requires motor
  behavior (physical movements) as well as
  intellectual understanding
• Problems when children cannot control the
  physical components of their bodies to produce
  sounds, cannot hear the differences between
  sounds, or do not possess the cognitive ability
  to learn the differences between phonemes
• Three Types of Phonemes
• Vowels (produced by vocal cord vibration and
  changing the shape of the mouth vocal cavity)
• Diphthongs (vowel-like productions that combine
  two vowel sounds in one syllable to create a
  unique sound
• Consonants (precise movements of body parts used
  in speech, flow of air) produce

6
Definitions

• Language
• Major components of language
• Phonology sound system of a language (English)
• Morphology rules for transforming words and
  changing their basic meanings
• Syntax rule governing order and combination of
  words to form phrases and sentences
• Semantics meaning of language
• Pragmatics social aspects of language
• Language
• Form (phonology, morphology, syntax)
• Content (semantics)
• Function (pragmatics)

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Incidence

• 1.1 million of 5.5 million (20) children between
  the ages of 6 and 21 who were served during the
  1998-1999 school year under IDEA were diagnosed
  as having speech or language impairments as their
  primary impairment
• Low Number does not account for coexisting
  disabilities (CP, MR, Multiple, HI, MS, and
  Autism)
• 42 of all children with disabilities are served
  by speech-language pathologists
• Adult acquired strokes, hearing loss, accidents,
  degenerative diseases account for greater number

8
Etiology and Characteristics of Speech Disorders

• Articulation Disorders
• 4 types of errors
• Substitute one sound for another
• Omit sounds from words
• Distort the normal production of sounds
• Add sounds that do not belong in words
• Most common causes known (organic articulation
  problems) unknown (developmental phonological
  disorders)

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Etiology and Characteristics of Speech Disorders
Most Common Causes

• Organic Articulation Problems
• Clefts of Palate
• Opening that results from the failure of facial
  structures to fuse appropriately during prenatal
  development
• Cerebral Palsy
• TBI
• Hearing Loss
• Developmental Phonological Disorders
• Difficulty making speech sounds without any
  identifiable structural, neurological, or
  physiological cause
• Up to 80 of children identified as having
  articulation disorders may have developmental
  phonological disorders

10
Etiology and Characteristics of Language Disorders

• 1 of all school-aged children have language
  disorders
• Not a disease, but rather a failure to learn
• Prerequisite conceptual knowledge
• Developmental or acquired, receptive and/or
  expressive
• Conceptual knowledge of the environment
• It is impossible for a child to linguistically
  convey what he or she does not know
• Play facilitates the development of language
  through symbolic development

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Deficits that may cause language disorders

• Attention
• Ability to focus on one event while excluding all
  other competing distractions
• Long-term and Short-term Memory
• Long term memory
• Short term (working) memory
• Perception
• Ability to recognize commonalities in events

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Technology

• Communication
• Any act by which one person gives to or receives
  from another person information about that
  persons needs, desires, perceptions, knowledge,
  or affective states
• May be
• Intentional/unintentional
• Conventional/unconventional (signals)
• Take on linguistic/nonlinguistic (forms)
• Occur through spoken or other (modes)

13
AAC

• Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
• Integrated group of components including
  symbols, aids, strategies, and techniques used by
  individuals to enhance communication
• Symbol
• Gestural communication
• Aid
• Strategy
• Technique

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Suggestions for Facilitating Language

• Be responsive to the childs spontaneous
  communicative attempts
• Modify input
• Provide opportunities for the child to
  communicate
• Model or expand the childs language
• Talk about things of interest to the child
• Provide many clear examples of language rules
• Reduce complexity
• Tell and re-tell stories and experiences