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Speech & Language

Articulation

• A person has an articulation problem when he or she produces sounds, syllables, or words incorrectly so that listeners do not understand what is being said or pay more attention to the way the words sound than to what they mean.
• Articulation problems may result from physical handicaps, such as cerebral palsy, cleft palate, or hearing loss, or may be related to other problems in the mouth, such as dental problems. However, most articulation problems occur in the absence of any obvious physical disability. The cause of these so-called functional articulation problems may be faulty learning of speech sounds.
• Children learn their speech sounds by listening to the speech around them. This learning begins very early in life. If children have frequent ear infections during this important listening period, they may fail to learn some speech sounds.

Aphasia

• Aphasia is the condition in which an individual has difficulty expressing thoughts and understanding what is said or written by others.
• Aphasia is caused by brain damage, resulting most often from a stroke or direct injury to the head.
• Speech may be limited to short phrases or single words, it may also be slurred.
• The most common characteristic is difficulty in naming.
• They need time to think about the words they want to use.
• They hear the words, but they may not immediately recall the meaning of the word.

Voice Problems

• Voice is a problem when the pitch, loudness or quality calls attention to itself rather than to what the speaker is saying. It is also a problem if the speaker experiences pain or discomfort when speaking or singing.
• There are a variety of causes of voice problems. Persons can become hoarse temporarily by cheering at a baseball game, or an individual can sustain an injury that causes paralysis of a vocal fold. Misuse of the voice, such as talking too loud or using pitch level that is too high or too low, can result in a voice problem. So can improper breathing patterns. Abuse of the vocal folds through excessive smoking can be damaging to the voice.
• Swelling of the folds after voice misuse is known as an edema. Small growths that result from misusing the voice are known as vocal nodules, nodes, polyps, or contact ulcers.