How speech pathology treats speech delays and speech disorders in children
What is a speech disorder?
“Speech sound disorder refers to speech errors of physical or linguistic in nature”
What causes a speech sound disorder?
What does a speech sound disorder look like?
Articulation Errors
Phonological Errors
Motor Speech Errors
“It is never too early to seek help for speech sounds”
Impacts of a speech disorder on social development
Preschool can play a vital role in a child’s understanding and impression of social interactions. It is at preschool where a child’s social environment grows beyond their family and close friends. Preschoolers are looked after by someone who is not their family or caregiver, and are making friendships with their peers. Peer relationships and interactions become increasingly important to children at this time. One study found that preschoolers use communicative competence to measure peer popularity. Children who had difficulty with their communication, such as having a speech sound disorder, were more likely to be judged negatively compared to those with typical communication skills.
Other studies have also looked into how speech disorders can impact children later in their school years. They have shown that even a mild speech disorder can have negative consequences for the child’s social interactions and peer perception. Their typically developing peers may have more negative judgments on the child’s ability to talk, their popularity and their likelihood of success in later years.
Impacts of a speech disorder on learning
Studies have shown that having a speech sound error as a preschooler can affect a child’s academic success.
The ability to produce speech sounds accurately is highly correlated with learning to read and spell. There is much research that indicates children who have previously had speech sound disorders are at a higher risk of having decoding difficulties. This means that they struggle to relate letter-sound relationships when reading.
These difficulties include:
- Phonetic discrimination: hearing the difference between similar sounds
- Phonetic recognition: recognising a heard sound
- Phonological representations: the brain’s representation of a word and its sounds
This is because children who have had resolved speech sound disorders may not have concrete representations of speech sounds and their associated letters, even if their speech sound error has been fixed during the preschool years and the first year of school. Monitoring a child’s phonological awareness skills, that is their knowledge of sounds in words, is critical for children with speech sound errors.
When to seek help
We recommend you contact us at Talkshop Speech Pathology if your child [10]:
- Is more difficult to understand than his/her peers
- Makes speech errors that his/her peers do not
- Daycare, preschool or school teachers express concerns
- Feels self-conscious about his/her speech (e.g. stops trying or gives up quickly)
- Is frustrated by his/her speech
- Gets picked on because of his/her speech
- Understood less than 70% of the time at age 3 ½
- Speech is not 100% intelligible and is easily understood by others at age 4.
It is never too early to seek help for speech sounds. For that reason, we welcome you to contact us at Talkshop Speech Pathology if you are worried about your child’s speech for any other reason.
How we can help
Initial Consultation
If you are unsure if your child’s speech is typical for their age or not, you can schedule a free initial consult to chat to one of our speech pathologists.
Screener
We provide a speech pathology screener service to pre-schools around around our clinic locations. A speech pathology screener is designed to be a highly affordable way to screen a child against a broad spectrum of developmental norms in their speech, language, pre-literacy, voice, and social skills. Screeners tell us whether we need to monitor their development. If they really do need further assessment and therapy. On the other hand, it can sometimes help you relax(!) as the ‘errors’ are a typical pattern of development.If your child’s pre-school has not arranged a speech pathology screener please contact us and your child’s pre-school so we can discuss providing screeners.
“Speech sounds also has impacts on oral (spoken) language development and literacy development”
Speech Assessment
Before the assessment:
Oro-motor Assessment:
Formal and informal assessment:
Intelligibility:
Pre-literacy/Literacy skills:
Language:
We also look at the impacts this has on their oral language development and social skills development. Children who are hard to understand often simplify what they say in order to be understood. They shorten their sentences, making grammar errors, or omit words that are ‘tricky’. They are less likely to explore new words so this can affect the development of language.
“Therapy for speech sound disorders involves teaching a hierarchy of skills”
Therapy Management Plan
In step-by-step (Developmental) order:
By functional impact:
By choosing to contrast 2 very different sounds together:
Therapy for speech
“We aim to give you the inspiration to incorporate home practice into games and your daily routine”
References
1 “Speech Sound Disorders: Articulation and Phonology: Overview – ASHA.”
https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/articulation-and-phonology/. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
2 “Articulation and Phonological Disorders (Speech Sound Disorders ….”
https://csld.org/articulation-and-phonological-disorders-speech-sound-disorders. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
3 “Speech Sound Disorders: Articulation and Phonology: Overview – ASHA.”
https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/articulation-and-phonology/. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
4 “Lisping – When /s/ and /z/ are hard to say – Caroline Bowen.” 23 Nov. 2011,
https://speech-language-therapy.com/index.php?view=article&id=86:lisp. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
5 “Fact Sheets – Speech Pathology Australia.”
https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/SPAweb/Resources_for_the_Public/Fact_Sheets/Fact_Sheets.aspx. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
6 “Dysarthria – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic.” 18 May. 2018,
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dysarthria/symptoms-causes/syc-20371994. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
7 “Dysarthria – ASHA.”
https://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/dysarthria/. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
8 “Childhood Apraxia of Speech – ASHA.”
https://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/childhood-apraxia-of-speech/. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
9 “Childhood apraxia of speech – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic.” 9 Aug. 2017,
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/childhood-apraxia-of-speech/symptoms-causes/syc-20352045. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
10 “Fact Sheets – Speech Pathology Australia.”
https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/SPAweb/Resources_for_the_Public/Fact_Sheets/Fact_Sheets.aspx. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
11 “McLeod, S., Crowe, K., Masso, S., Baker, E., McCormack, J., Wren, Y ….”
https://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/files/113237354/AJLD_SSS_in_press_.pdf. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
12 “Children with Speech Sound Disorders at School – Research Online.”
https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3277&context=ajte. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.
Speech Pathology Australia Fact sheet: “The Sound of Speech: 0 to 3 years”
Speech Pathology Australia Fact sheet: “The Sound of Speech: Preschool and School Aged Children”
https://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/Speech-Sound-Disorders/
McLeod, S., Crowe, K., Masso, S., Baker, E., McCormack, J., Wren, Y., … & Howland, C. (2017). Profile of Australian preschool children with speech sound disorders at risk for literacy difficulties. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 22(1), 15-33.
Wren, Y., Harding, S., et al. (2018).
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 53(3), 446-467.