Speech Sound Disorders

This is an umbrella term referring to any difficulty or combination of difficulties with perception, motor production, or phonological representation of speech sounds and speech segments. As young children learn to speak, it is normal for them to have some difficulty saying words correctly. That is part of the learning process. Speech skills develop over time. Children master certain sounds at each age. By age 8, most children have learned how to correctly say all speech sounds in words.

Children with speech sound disorders have difficulty producing sounds, words, or phrases clearly and fluently. This can be due to immature development, neurological impairment or a structural difference, such as cleft lip/palate.

Speech sound disorders include:

Articulation Disorders: An articulation disorder is the inability to say certain speech sounds correctly beyond the age when the sound is typically learned. Speech sounds may be dropped, added, distorted, or substituted. It is important to keep in mind that some changes may be part of an accent or dialect, and may not be true speech errors.

Phonological Disorders: A phonological disorder occurs when a child makes a predictable and typical patterns of speech sound errors. The mistakes may be common in young children learning speech skills, but when they continue past a certain age, it may be a disorder. A speech sound disorder may also involve a combination of both articulation and phonological disorders. If you suspect your child has a speech sound disorder, talk to your child’s healthcare provider as soon as possible. Research has shown that children who begin speech therapy early have the best outcomes.

Apraxia: Apraxia is motor speech disorder that makes it hard to speak. It can take a lot of work to learn to say sounds and words better. Apraxia of speech is sometimes called acquired apraxia of speech, verbal apraxia, or dyspraxia. It is a motor speech disorder which results from some type of traumatic injury (i.e. Stroke, TBI, etc.)

Dysarthria: Dysarthria occurs when the muscles you use for speech are weak or you have difficulty controlling them. Dysarthria often causes slurred or slow speech than can be difficult to understand. Common causes of dysarthria include nervous system disorders and conditions that cause facial paralysis or tongue or throat muscle weakness.

Fluency/Stuttering

Stuttering is a speech disorder characterized by repetition of sounds, syllables, or words; prolongation of sounds; and interruptions in speech known as blocks. An individual who stutters knows exactly what he or she would like to say but has trouble producing a normal flow of speech. These speech disruptions may be accompanied by secondary characteristics, such as rapid eye blinks or tremors of the lips. Stuttering can make it difficult to communicate with other people, which often affects a person’s quality of life and interpersonal relationships. Stuttering can also negatively influence job performance and opportunities.

Symptoms of stuttering can vary significantly throughout a person’s day. In general, speaking before a group or talking on the telephone may make a person’s stuttering more severe, while singing, reading, or speaking in unison may temporarily reduce stuttering. Stuttering is sometimes referred to as stammering and by a broader term, disfluent speech.

Time 2 Talk Therapy utilizes a variety of curriculums and materials in order to introduce our clients to fluency shaping strategies.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a speech disorder in which a child’s brain has difficulty coordinating the complex oral movements needed to create sounds into syllables, syllables into words, and words into phrases. Typically, muscle weakness is not to blame for this speech disorder.

According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA, 2007), the three most common features in children with apraxia of speech are:

• Inconsistent errors on consonants and vowels in repeated productions of syllables or words (for example, a child says the same word differently each time he tries to produce it).

• Difficulty producing longer, more complex words and phrases.

• Inappropriate intonation and stress in word/phrase production (for example, difficulty with the timing, rhythm and flow of speech).