Speech-language disorders occur when a child finds it difficult to make the sounds of speech, or understand and speak with other people. According to a report released by the United State’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, speech-language disorders are very common as 7.7 percent of children (that is 1 in 12 children in America) have either a speech or swallowing disorder.
In part one of this series, we will be focusing on common speech disorders in children and solutions for children facing these challenges.
Generally, children with speech disorder find it hard forming the sounds to produce speech or putting words together to form sentences.
In a previous post, we discussed the various speech-language milestones that children are supposed to hit at different ages. For children with speech disorders, it may be tough pronouncing letters like p, b, m, h, and w, at 1 to 2 years of age. And if at 3 years old a child finds it difficult pronouncing letters like k, g, f, t, d, and n, then chances are, he or she has a speech disorder and the parents need to seek medical help for the child.
That said, here are the 5 most common speech disorders in children.
Apraxia of Speech (AOS)
While Apraxia is seen as a speech disorder common among children, it actually affects adults as well. However, apraxia in adults is caused by brain injury or illness such as stroke or in some cases, it is as a result of childhood apraxia that is carried into adulthood.
Whatever is the case, apraxia of speech occurs when a person knows what to say and can even write it clearly but finds it hard to form sounds. This speech disorder is caused by a breach in the neural pathway between the brain and the child’s speech muscles. In this case, the brain is unable to communicate the message in a way that can be understood by the speech functions.
Apraxia does not mean that the child’s speech muscles are impaired. It is a stressful condition for affected children and one that requires early intervention. Worse still, there is no scientific report, yet, that clearly point out the causes of apraxia in children and the symptoms are often unclear as children with mild apraxia often exhibit similar traits with children suffering from other types of speech disorder.
However, severe cases of apraxia are often easily diagnosed as they have more pronounced symptoms such as the inability to articulate words, off-target movements that distort sounds, inconsistency in pronunciation, and groping for sound positions.
Stuttering (Stammering)
Stuttering is so common that you do not need the help of a specialist to know that a child is suffering from the condition. Unlike apraxia, stuttering is common among children and rarely develop in adulthood. Most adults who stutter developed the condition as children.
It is important to note that up to three-quarter of children who stutter outgrow the condition. You may, however, need the help of a speech-language pathologist to help a child overcome severe stammering such as non-verbal stuttering.
A speech-language pathologist will help your child to identify the events that trigger the condition and work out modalities to help the child to overcome the condition.
Dysarthria
Dysarthria is caused by damage to speech muscles such as vocal cords, diaphragm, lips, and tongue. The condition manifests in the form of slurred speech, slowed speech or laboured speech, limited tongue, jaw, or lip movement, changes in voice quality, difficulty articulating, and abnormal rhythm and pitch when speaking.
Dysarthria affects people of all age brackets and can be caused during development in the womb. Dysarthria can also be caused by other conditions such as dystrophy and cerebral palsy or multiple sclerosis, stroke, and tumours in adults.
Since dysarthria is caused by nerve or muscle damage, there is little a speech-language pathologist can do to cure the condition. However, behavioural changes like slowing down when talking, exercising the speech muscles, and breath training can help to manage the condition.
Speech Delay – Alalia
Speech delay otherwise known as alalia occurs when a child isn’t making conscious attempts to speak as any normal kid should. We have a blog post that treated this topic in details and it will be important to take some time to read it.
There are several factors that can cause this and it is equally important to note that speech delay in children may emanate from either speech issues or language problems. For this reason, it is very important to engage a speech-language pathologist to narrow down to the root cause of the problem.
For children with speech delay, early evaluation and intervention can make a huge difference. So if you notice any symptoms, kindly seek professional help.
Selective Mutism
Selective mutism occurs in children who have no impairment in their speech or language organs but choose not to speak in certain environments. A common example is a child speaking at home but never speak in the classroom.
It is more of a psychological condition rather than a physical one and usually common with kids who have an anxiety disorder or social withdrawal or isolation problems. Children who have this problem often find it difficult performing well in academics and counselling is the best way to deal with the problem.
However, engaging a speech-language pathologist is important to identify the actual causes of the problem because children with certain speech disorders such as stuttering are often too shy to communicate outside their homes.
In the second part of this series, we shall examine the common language problems encountered by children.
If your child is suffering from any of these conditions, engaging an SLP will help him or her to overcome their challenges.