Following is a list and descriptions of the most common speech and language problems:

Language Disorder – Any difficulty with the production and/or reception of linguistic units, regardless of environment, which may range from total absence of speech to minor variance with syntax; meaningful language may be produced, but with limited content; e.g., reduced vocabulary; restricted verbal formulations; omission of articles, prepositions, tense and plural markers; lack of modifiers.

Receptive Language – understanding what is said and following directions; demonstration of understanding may be demonstrated in a variety of ways, e.g., localizing by eye-contact an object that was named or acting upon what was said in some way, e.g., people in the room discuss going out for ice cream and the young 12-14 month old child goes to stand by the front door as if to prepare for leaving.

Expressive Language – most commonly understood to be verbal communication or talking, it is the use conventional symbols to communicate one’s perceptions, ideas, feelings, or intentions to others; therefore, gestures, pointing, pulling, sign language and picture communication are all forms or expressive language.

Note: While one may be diagnosed as having either a receptive language problem or an expressive language problem or both, in either case, receptive and expressive language are inextricably intertwined; they are not mutually exclusive, with the exception of their discussion on paper and differential diagnosis.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – Attention Deficit Disorders may be seen with or without hyperactivity, but most typically, a hyperactive component is present and causes the greatest concern to caregivers. This disorder is marked by the patient’s inability to attend well for extended periods of time on a single topic, fidgeting with hands, feet or whole body, difficulty remaining seated during normally seated activities, such as reading, writing, or drawing, easily distracted by extraneous stimuli, blurting out, interrupting, difficulty following through on instructions, excessive talking, shifting quickly from one activity to the next without completing any, etc.

Autism / Pervasive Developmental Delay – A neurological disorder that features marked impairment in social interaction and communication; often accompanied by restricted patterns of behavior, activities, or interests. Autistic spectrum disorders range from mild to severe together with a similar range in communicative dysfunction. The most obvious language component typically impaired is in the area of pragmatics, resulting in poor social communication skills, including poor turn-taking skills, poor eye-contact, and lacking the ability to gauge culturally acceptable social proximities (within the guidelines of one’s own culture).

Autism is a disorder of the brain that happens while a child is still growing. Children with autism may have a hard time relating to other people, talking and communicating or doing the same things over and over. About 5 out of every 1,000 children have some kind of autism. Boys have autism more often girls.

Symptoms of Autism

  • Does not show an interest in people, even those who love them
  • Does not react when you call their name or does not look people in the eye
  • Does not understand tone of voice or facial expressions
  • Is not aware of others’ feelings or how actions may affect others
  • Does not babble by first birthday
  • Does not speak one word by 16 months
  • Loses words and language skills at any age
  • Does not use common gestures, such as waving good-bye or pointing
  • Does the same things over and over such as repeat actions, e.g. spinning a toy in a circle or rocking back and forth for hours
  • Pain response atypical
  • Does not like to be held or cuddled

Different Kinds of Autism

  • Autistic Disorder - All the behaviors of autism. Also known as “classic autism.”
  • Asperger Syndrome - Children with this kind of autism often have good language skills and high intelligence, but they may have problems relating to others and may have only very specific interests.
  • Pervasive Developmental Disorder - (Not other Specified)Has some of the behaviors of autism but not all. These children typically have fewer difficulties than those with classic autism.
    With Autism, some children improve as they get older with the help of classes and programs that are designed to help introduce behavior that autistic children find difficult. It has been shown that early intervention is crucial to the advancement of autistic children and can dramatically improve their condition.

Apraxia of Speech –Apraxia is a neurological disorder characterized by loss of the ability to execute or carry out learned purposeful movements, despite having the desire and the physical ability to perform the movements. It is a disorder of motor planning which may be acquired or developmental, but may not be caused by incoordination, sensory loss, or failure to comprehend simple commands (which can be tested by asking the person tested to recognize the correct movement from a series).

Apraxia of Speech is a specific type of apraxia that makes it difficult for a person(usually child) to plan out the movements necessary for speaking. For even more information on Childhood Apraxia of Speech(CAS), please visit http://www.apraxia-kids.org/.

Aphasia - is the loss of the ability to produce or comprehend speech due to injuries to specific brain areas specialized for those specific functions such as Broca’s Area, which governs language production and Wernicke’s Area, which governs the interpretation of lanugage. This loss of ability IS NOT due to deficits in any sensory, intellect, or psychiatric functions.

Typical symptoms of Aphasia include:

  • inability to comprehend language
  • inability to pronounce, not due to muscle paralysis or weakness
  • inability to speak spontaneously
  • inability to form words
  • inability to name objects
  • poor enunciation
  • excessive creation and use of personal neologisms
  • inability to repeat a phrase
  • persistent repetition of phrases
  • paraphasia (substituting letters, syllables or words)
  • agrammatism (inability to speak in a grammatically correct fashion)
  • dysprosody (alterations in inflexion, stress, and rhythm)
  • uncompleted sentences
  • inability to read
  • inability to write

Stuttering –Also known as stammering, is a condition in which the flow of speech is broken by abnormal stoppages, repetitions, or prolongations of sounds and syllables. These symptoms are also accompanied by observable facial and bodily movements associated with the effort of speaking. While almost all children go through a stage of frequent disfluency in early speech development. Stuttering problems are likely to appear around 2 to 5. If you notice that your child is stuttering, we strongly recommend that you visit a professional as soon as possible as most stuttering problems can be minimized if treatment is started at an early age.

Dysarthria – A motor speech disorder, often resulting in sluggish, slurred speech due to poor nerve innervation to the speech musculature. May affect respiration, articulation, phonation, resonation, and prosodic features (pitch, loudness, rate, intonation, etc.).

Articulation Problem –The production of non-standard speech sounds held to be standard by the speaking community in which the speaker communicates, e.g., an “s” lisp or replacement of the “s” sound with another, most often, “th,” or the production of an “r” sound using a “w,” e.g., “rabbit” spoken “wabbit.”

Phonological Processing Problems –Phonological processes refers to techniques used by children to simplify speech when attempting to produce adult words; when these processes or rules that account for errors of substitution, omission, or addition, persist, beyond age accepted norms, the discrepancy between the child’s production of an adults speech is considered disordered. A large discrepancy in speech production due to a phonological processing problem usually results in unintelligible or difficult to comprehend speech.

Hearing Impaired – Refers to children or adults with hearing loss, from mild to significant amounts, including deafness.

Hearing Aids – An electronic amplifying device whose function is to bring sound more effectively into the listeners ear for people with a conductive hearing loss.

Cochlear Implant – A surgically implanted device that bypasses the inner ear damage and ultimately delivers electrical signals through tiny contacts to the hearing nerve, thus allowing people with a sensorineural hearing loss to hear again, when followed by intensive aural rehabilitation, or habilitation in the case of young children.

Aural Rehabilitation – Therapeutic and educational intervention for people with hearing loss to improve the effectiveness of their overall communication. Includes training in the use and maintenance of hearing aid and cochlear implant devices and how to make use of the information heard. May include the use and training of sign language be it American Sign Language (ASL) or Signing Exact English (SEE).

Voice Disorders – Related to the quality of the speaking voice marked by such features as pitch, loudness, rate, and fluidity; disorders may result in hoarseness, rapid rate of speech, breathiness, voicelessness, too high or low pitch, hyper/hypo-nasality. Disorders may result from voice overuse, abuse or misuse or from physical ailments and injury.

Accent / Dialect Reduction – A dialect is the specific form of a language spoken in a given geographical area, differing sufficiently from the “official standard” of the larger language community to be regarded as a distinct entity (different by pronunciation, vocabulary or the idiomatic use of words), but not sufficiently different to regarded as a different language. A person’s dialect is NOT a disorder, but may pose a problem communicatively in that the speaker may not be understood or accepted into the greater community or into communities in which he/she would like to work.