Parents often can see that their child is struggling with communication, but they don’t know exactly what to call it, or how to help. I’m going to walk you through the different types of speech-language disorders and how to recognize them.
Hi, my name is Carol Edgel, and I’m a certified speech-language pathologist. In my years of teaching, I’ve noticed that parents often can see that their child is struggling with communication, but they don’t know exactly what to call it, or how to help. Even the child’s teachers might not know how to label it. In this video, I’m going to walk you through the different types of speech-language disorders and how to recognize them.
Depending on the child’s age and how hard he is to understand, the child might need to be evaluated by a speech-language pathologist. It is always better to begin treatment while the child is young, before he has had time to build up incorrect speech habits.
If the teacher says, “Tell me what you did last summer,” the child might respond, “We went to Talifonnia an wen to Ditneywan, an we wen to da beats an went surpin. Den we wen to Wedo Wan an Sea Wood an I saw sarts an pendins. Den we tame home adin an dat’s all.”
The child exhibited many substitution errors, as well as deletion and distortion of other sounds.
Rare condition -- Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) -- this is when the child cannot coordinate signals between his brain and his speech articulators in order to form words correctly. His errors will be inconsistent, and he may exhibit groping behaviors. The cause of CAS is usually unknown, and it is different than apraxia in adults.
Because a child with CAS or a phonological disorder will probably have many errors that make the child hard to understand, he should be evaluated by a speech-language pathologist.
Using the same vacation story above, a child with a grammar problem might say it this way:
“I go California, go see Disneyland, go at beach and do surfing. Then us see Lego Land and Sea World, I see sharks and penguins. Then us go home, go home again and that’s all.”
Notice how the child is pronouncing his sounds correctly, but is using the wrong verb tenses and pronouns, among other things.
An example would be a child who struggles to follow multi-step directions at home or at school. Imagine if a first grade teachers is telling the class, “Take out your math book and turn to chapter 2, exercise 1. That should be on page 54.” Already the child will be struggling to follow the directions but the teacher will continue, “Now get out a piece of paper and write your name on the top right corner and number the paper from 1-10 down the left-hand side.” By now the child will probably be asking the teacher, “What? What do we do again?” or turning to his neighbor and saying, “What page? What do I put on the paper?”
For example, you may read your child the story of The 3 Little Pigs, and ask her, “What was the main idea of this story?” She may answer, “Pigs!” If you push her by saying, “Yes, there were pigs in the story, but what was the problem?” she may give up and say, “Umm… I don’t know.”
If you suspect your child has a language disorder, she might need to be evaluated by a speech-language pathologist, depending on your child’s age and performance at school.
As with speech-sound disorders, it is best to catch language disorders early and begin treatment when the child is young. The child’s problems with language can become more evident as they get older and try to keep up with the increased demands of the upper elementary grades and beyond.
It is not related to what your child’s teacher might call fluency of reading, or how fast and accurately they can read. Here we are talking about how smoothly your child can speak without multiple repetitions of sounds and words.
Most of us are familiar with what stuttering sounds like. And most of us repeat our words or sounds on occasion. When the amount of stuttering reaches a certain point, it becomes an issue.
For example, using the vacation story from earlier, the child who stutters might respond this way, “I–I-I - I went to Ca-Ca-Ca-Ca- California………….. We-We-, you know, we- went to D- d- d- Disneyland. To Disneyland. ……And and and we went to Sssssss Sea World.”
It is not uncommon for children 3-4 years old to exhibit some stuttering behaviors. Often, they will grow out of it, but it’s hard to know who will and who won’t. If your child has fluency symptoms that make it hard for family, friends and teachers to understand him, it may be time to have him evaluated by a speech-language pathologist.
I hope this mini-course was helpful to you. Please check out our other courses at clarityspeechandlanguage.com. Thanks and have a great day!
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