Speech Disorders Research Paper

Many people would like to make a difference, not only in their own life, but in others’ lives as well. Deepak Chopra once said, “Everyone has a purpose in life…a unique gift or special talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.” All of us, at one point in our lives, have to make the difficult decision of the goals we want to work towards. We all have certain goals, standards, and expectations of ourselves. Not everyone will figure out what they want to be right away, and some will know from the very beginning. My plan for my life is helping others through Speech Language

When a child began talking that child lisped, stuttered, or had a hard time pronouncing words. People could think it is cute or not to worry because child would soon grow over it. However, if that child becomes teenager and still stuttering, then it becomes an issue. Speech disorder can divide into Fluency, articulation, and voice disorder.

* speech problems, such as not being able to pronounce long words properly and "jumbling" up phrases – for example, saying "helicopter" instead of "helicopter", or "beddy tear" instead of "teddy bear"

It is a speech disorder which causes problems in the co-ordination and flow of speech.  Children may:

Development is holistic, which means one area of development interlinks with another. If a a child's speech is not as developed as its peers due to a physical disability they will not be able to communicate effectively with other children or adults. This could affect their emotional development as they may feel their opinion and needs are not being met due to their failure to communicate.

For most children there is no clear reason as to why there is a delay in the development of speech, language and communication skills. Therefore, an adult should never assume that the child’s speech, language and communication problems are due to hearing loss. It may be that the child is experiencing communicating difficulties that are unrelated to their hearing problems because the child may not have acquired the vocabulary necessary to express his thoughts and actions.

Speech, language and communication difficulties can have a profound and lasting effect on children’s lives and development. These can affect their ability to communicate and interact with others. The impact of these difficulties will vary depending on the severity of the problems, the support they receive, the demands of the child’s environment

Children may face behavioural difficulties such as aggression. This could affect their speech because they may express how they feel through the aggression and not by using speech. Their speech may become poor as a result. Their language they use may not be correct and their communication maybe poor or no existent. Emotional difficulties could include going through a family breakup or grievance. The child may become withdrawn and upset. Children going through this may not want to communicate with people in turn becoming mute. This would have a negative effect on their speech. Social difficulties could include poor housing, lack of friendships and living in poverty. This would affect the child’s SLC because they may not get the socialisation

Across an endless time continuum through many different eras, many individuals from various different language backgrounds have experienced speech or communication disorders—including swallowing disorders, the incapability to coherently speak certain words, and auditory processing difficulties. According to the speech-language hearing association (ASHA), a communication disorder is defined as an impairment in the ability to receive, send, process, and comprehend concepts or verbal, nonverbal and graphic symbol systems (Asha.org, 2015). The severity of communication disorders may vary from mild to quite profound in a range of numerous individuals, regardless of era, heritage and ethnicity. A communication disorder amongst those experiencing

With a very young child, they may not coo or babble during infancy, produce first words late and lack some sounds, only produce a few different consonant and vowel sounds, have difficulty combining sounds, avoid using difficult sounds by replacing or deleting them, and experience eating problems. In older children, common signs are that they can comprehend language much easier than they can produce it, struggle more with language production when anxious, are hard to understand, sound choppy and monotonous, seem to grope to produce certain sounds, and have difficulty imitating speech, though they are more fluid and clear with imitation than with spontaneous production. At any age, a child may portray delayed language development, issues with expressive language, fine motor impairments, hypersensitivity, hyposensitivity, and difficulty learning to write (“Childhood Apraxia,” 2011). Other reported possible symptoms of CAS include extended reliance on nonverbal communication and omission of consonant sounds in the initial and final positions of words (“Apraxia: Symptoms, Causes,” n.d.).

Some children that have problems talking, may have one or multiple of these symptoms/signs, which they have trouble with:

Communication is very crucial in life, especially in education. Whether it be delivering a message or receiving information, without the ability to communicate learning can be extremely difficult. Students with speech and language disorders may have “trouble producing speech sounds, using spoken language to communicate, or understanding what other people say” (Turkington, p10, 2003) Each of these problems can create major setbacks in the classroom. Articulation, expression and reception are all essential components for communication. If a student has an issue with articulation, they most likely then have difficulty speaking clearly and at a normal rate (Turkington, 2003). When they produce words, they

Many causes can be attributed to speech and language delay, and it is important to understand the characteristics of the causes in order to help a child effectively. Although speech delay can be just that, it may indicate other issues or disorders and may be the first indicator of such (American Family Physician, 2011, pg.1183). Some causes of speech delay are mental retardation, hearing loss, developmental language delay, expressive language disorder, bilingualism, psychosocial development, elective mutism, and receptive aphasia (American Family Physician, 1999).

In language delay, the child in question usually struggles with the following; saying their first words be it as simple as ‘mama’, learning their first words which is usually a product of what they have heard over a long period of time, combining two or three words to form a simple sentence in a bid to communicate, building their vocabulary and eventually understanding what some words mean like ‘come’ or even sentences and instructions. When the speech delay does not seem to go away or get better then this could be a language disorder.

Communication disorder is impairment in being able to receive, send, process, and understand concepts of verbal or nonverbal communication”. It can affect hearing, language, and speech. (ASHA) A speech disorder is when the articulation or speech is impaired, which includes articulation, fluency, and voice disorders. Language disorder is when comprehension or spoken or written language is not understood. There are three areas that can be affected which include form of language, content of language or function of communication. (ASHA)