In this article, we will Explain the Various Speech Disorders.

What are the most common Types of Speech Disorders?

Speech Disorders involve difficulty in producing normal speech patterns. Children progress through various stages of speech production during their communication development. What’s normal for one age group might indicate a problem in an older child. Speech, which is the vocal expression of language, can be disordered in three main ways: voice, articulation, and fluency (Roseberry-McKibbin, 1995).

These disorders encompass Voice Disorders, which involve abnormalities in pitch, volume, vocal quality, resonance, or duration of sounds. They also include Speed Sound Disorders/Articulation Disorders, which entail difficulties in producing speech sounds. Additionally, Fluency Disorders are characterized by impairments in the normal rate or rhythm of speech, such as stuttering.

1. Voice Disorders:

Voice production involves the coordinated function of the lungs, larynx, vocal cords, and nasal passages to create understandable sounds. Disorders in voice can arise from incorrect phonation or resonance. Incorrect phonation may result in breathy, strained, husky, or hoarse voice, while incorrect resonance may lead to hyper-nasality or hypo-nasality. Voice disorders may also stem from improper voicing habits.

Paralanguage, including pitch, volume, and intonation, varies across cultures and can convey a range of meanings independently of words. Factors to consider in assessing voice disorders include volume, pitch, quality, and rate of speech.

• Volume: how loudly or softly we speak
• Pitch: how pleasant or unpleasant
• Quality: the highness or lowness of one’s voice
• Rate: the speed at which one speaks

The interpretation of voice disorders can differ among cultures. In many African cultures, masculinity and femininity are determined by paralinguistic features. For example, a man with a low volume, high pitch, or smooth and slow voice might face criticism for not speaking “like a man.”

2. Speech Sound Disorders:

These disorders involve difficulty in producing specific speech sounds, often certain consonants like /s/ or /r/. They are divided into articulation disorders (or phonetic disorders) and phonemic disorders. Articulation disorders involve difficulty physically producing sounds, while phonemic disorders involve trouble learning sound distinctions in a language, leading to the use of one sound for many.

(i) Articulation Disorders:

Articulation requires the use of the tongue, lips, teeth, and mouth to make understandable speech sounds. It’s disordered if sounds are added, omitted, substituted, or distorted. Causes can include structural abnormalities like cleft lip/palate, faulty learning of the sound system, or nervous system damage.

These conditions can impact a person’s self-concept. For example, Pinky Sonkar, an eight-year-old girl from Mirzapur, India, felt ashamed of her cleft lip and stopped smiling or attending school. After receiving free surgery from The Smile Train, her life changed.

(ii) Phonemic Disorders:

Phonemic disorders involve difficulty physically producing certain sounds, often termed speech impediments. Individuals may struggle to distinguish sounds made by different letters, leading to consistent mispronunciations. Speech therapy can help improve phonemic disorders, though outcomes vary depending on the case.

3. Fluency Disorders:

Fluency requires appropriate pauses and hesitations for clear speech. Disorders occur when speech is too rapid, cluttered, or contains repeated or blocked sounds, especially at word beginnings.

These disorders are more common in children and stem from a mix of familial, psychological, neurological, and motor factors.

Disfluent speech impacts social communication, crucial for human interaction and learning. Individuals with fluency disorders may face challenges at home, school, and in public, leading to social withdrawal.

4. Apraxia of Speech:

Apraxia of speech, also called verbal apraxia or dyspraxia, is a speech disorder causing difficulty in saying words correctly and consistently. Its severity ranges from mild to severe.

There are two main types: acquired apraxia of speech and developmental apraxia of speech. Acquired apraxia can affect anyone but typically occurs in adults due to brain damage from events like stroke or injury. Developmental apraxia occurs in children from birth, affecting more boys than girls.

The exact cause of developmental apraxia is unknown, but it may involve neurological issues affecting speech muscle movement or genetic factors. People with apraxia may struggle to form sounds and words consistently, often making inconsistent mistakes. They may also have trouble with speech rhythm and stress, impacting their ability to express meaning effectively.

Severity varies, with some individuals having difficulty with only a few sounds, while others struggle to communicate effectively.

5. Dysprosody:

Dysprosody, the rarest neurological speech disorder, involves alterations in speech intensity, timing, rhythm, cadence, and intonation. These alterations affect the duration, pitch, and intensity of syllables in sentences, altering the characteristics of speech. Dysprosody is typically associated with neurological conditions like strokes, head injuries, and brain tumours.

6. Dysarthria:

Dysarthria, a motor speech disorder, occurs due to weakness or paralysis in speech muscles from nerve or brain damage. Its type and severity depend on the affected area of the nervous system, often caused by conditions like strokes, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, injuries, or cerebral palsy.

Symptoms of dysarthria include slurred speech, whispering, slow or fast speech rates, limited tongue and jaw movement, abnormal intonation, changes in vocal quality, hoarseness, drooling, and swallowing difficulties.

A speech-language pathologist (SLP) assesses speech difficulties by examining lip, tongue, and face movements, breath support, and voice quality.

For children with isolated speech disorders, articulation therapy helps by practicing specific sounds, words, and sentences. Fluency training is effective for stuttering, focusing on speech-breathing coordination and slowing speech rates. Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) has also shown promise in stuttering treatment.

When speech problems stem from severe disabilities, a neurodevelopmental approach is preferred, inhibiting reflexes to promote normal movement. Other techniques include motor-kinesthetic approaches and biofeedback to correct faulty speech sounds. For severe cases, alternate communication methods like manual signing and computer-synthesized speech can be helpful.

FAQ:

• What are the most common Speech Sound Disorders?
• What are the Classification of Speech Disorders?
• What are the Speech Disorders in Children?
• What are the 3 Types of Speech and Language Disorders?

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