Speech and language therapy provides treatment, support and care for children and adults who have difficulties with speech,communication, voice or with eating, drinking and swallowing.
What are the different areas of speech?
ARTICULATION:
The mechanical production of sounds. Errors usually take the form of leaving out a sound, substituting one sound for another and or distorting a sound.
SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY:
How well the child’s speech is understood.
PHONOLOGY:
The science of speech sounds and sound patterns. For example: a child may drop all endings of words, or turn all back sounds such as /k/ and /g/ into sounds produced in the front of the mouth such as /t/ and /d/.
FLUENCY:
A fluency disorder refers to easy flow of or smooth speech. Everyone has disfluencies from time to time. Stuttering is speech that is more disfluent than average. A student must be exhibiting negative effects from his/her stuttering before being referred in a school setting.
VOICE:
Students or adults who display noticeable hoarseness, loss of voice, inappropriate volume, or a nasal/denasal quality may have a medical condition being the underlying cause of the disorder. They must be seen by an Ears Nose and Throat Doctor before receiving voice therapy.
LANGUAGE:
Includes semantics, syntax and pragmatics. Semantics refers to word meanings, syntax refers to grammar and pragmatics refers to actual use of language. The language consists of Expressive & Receptive parts.Expressive language refers to use of words and construction of thoughts while speaking. Receptive language refers to the understanding or comprehension of what was said or written.
AUDITORY PROCESSING:
Is the natural process of taking in sound through the ear and having it travel to the language area of the brain to be interpreted. To have a breakdown in this process is called an auditory processing disorder. This deficit is present despite having normal hearing. Auditory processing is "What our brain does with what the ear hears." When one is faced with an auditory processing deficit, his or her ears can pick up the sounds, words, etc., but his or her brain is not able to process the sounds properly. The auditory information becomes jumbled up or confused and therefore misunderstood.
When Speech Therapy is required?
If speech and language difficulties have an educational impact, meaning they impact learning, communicating, understanding or socializing a referral to SPEECH LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST can be initiated.
:REFERRAL MADE TO SPEECH LANGUAGE SPECIALIST:
Articulation:• Child is difficult to understand • Errors are impacting pre-reading or reading skills • Child is made fun of due to errors.
Fluency: • Negative impact of stuttering is present
Voice: • Voice is not loud,unclear,breathy,husky,frequently or suddenly change,choked • Negative impact is present
Language:Child could not start talking or insufficient speech at per his age or unable to understand speech or follow simple command.In Adult, the talking & understanding of speech suddenly impaired after stroke or accident.
Behavior & Attention:Child is very restless,inattentive,have problem behavior.
How Speech Therapist helps to overcome the speech problem?
Language Intervention: The Speech Language Specialist’s job is to model the language rules in the areas of language function, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics that the child has not yet developed. The target of intervention will vary with the age, functional level of the child and his/ her needs.
Auditory Processing Treatment: Treatment generally focuses on three primary areas: changing the learning or communication environment, recruiting higher-order skills to help compensate for the disorder, and remediation of the auditory deficit itself.
Articulation Therapy: Speech Language Specialists teach children with articulation disorders how to produce sounds correctly in their mouths.
Phonological Therapy: Goals in phonological therapy differ from articulation therapy in that phonological processes or rules are treated rather than the individual sounds themselves.
Oral-Motor Therapy: Here a variety of oral exercises is used often in conjunction with articulation therapy — various tongue, lip, and jaw exercises — to strengthen the muscles of the mouth.
Voice Therapy: Voice therapy begins only after the client was seen by an ENT doctor. The overall aim of voice therapy is to teach a healthy, non abusive voice production pattern. The treatment of nodules and vocal strain in children & adult begins by educating them and his or her family about the nature of the problem, including its signs and symptoms, causes and risk factors. The client is taught about voice production: phonation (how the sound is produced by the vocal cords); respiration (breathing); and, resonance.
Stuttering Therapy: There are several approaches to stuttering treatment. Stuttering modification therapy, also known as traditional stuttering therapy focuses on reducing the severity of stuttering by changing only the portions of speech in which a person stutters, to make them smoother, shorter, less tense and hard.
Occupational Therapy & Special Education:The child who is suffering from Autism,Attention deficit hyperactive disorder,Sensory Processing disorder etc. needs occupational therapy to improve attention,reduce hyperactivity,build listening attitude etc. in association with Occupational Therapist & Special Educator.
