Common Speech Disorders: Causes And Treatment

Kinds of Speech Sound Disorders

Articulation is attributed as the physical aspect involved in producing speech sounds. As such, when a child is inflicted with speech sound disorders, he will certainly have some difficulty in terms of articulating some speech sounds. This will ultimately make it hard for people to understand what the child is saying, which could lead to other various problems related to self-esteem and confidence. As such, here are some of the errors in most children suffering from speech disorders:

Substitutions - This means that the child will often use an incorrect sound instead of using the right one to compensate for the difficulty. Often, the sound they substitute is of similar articulation but much easier than the correct one.

Causes

The cause of speech sound disorder among the majority of children is largely unknown. Of course, for other speech sound disorders, they can be caused by existing conditions like a cleft palate, as well as problems with the teeth, loss of hearing and even some difficulties when controlling the mouth movements. Cerebral palsy is one of the many neurological problems linked to problems involving articulation. Some of these include:

Oral Apraxia

This is manifested by having a certain difficulty in making voluntary movements of the tongue and the lips as well as combining movements of both. This also encompasses other oral components needed to produce speech sounds. Thus, it would be harder for the child to produce speech or suffer from many inconsistent articulation errors.

Dysarthria

This pertains to the poor coordination of the muscles in the mouth, and this could include weakness or even paralysis. This will surely make speech slow, slurred and often inaccurate. Furthermore, it could also become hyper nasal, which happens when too much of the sound comes through the nose.

Treatment

It is very important for parents to intervene as early as possible when they think their children have communication disorders. The treatment has more efficacies the earlier it is implemented, preferably around preschool. This is because around this time period, normal language learning reaches a very critical point because strong speech habits are still in its developmental stages.

Actually, people can get their children tested to see if they have the early skills necessary for normal speech, as well as language development. Most speech pathologists work with parents, attempting to stimulate speech and language development by promoting it at home. An active treatment, mostly consisting of individual therapies, can begin as early as age two or four.

Of course, all young children could mispronounce words while they are learning how to communicate. As they age, their articulation skills will surely mature, hence how they pronounce words will become much clearer. Parents will have a larger contribution in developing their children's speech and language skills, since they are the first teachers for their child before they even get to school. As such, parents should help the child by giving him lots of opportunities to learn how to speak by reading materials and talking to them throughout the course of the day, most especially while doing fun activities. That way, children are able to learn how to speak without them considering it as an arduous and difficult task.

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