How can we support communication?
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Speech Sound Disorders
An articulation disorder is an error in the pronunciation of speech sounds characterized by substitutions, omissions, additions or distortions that may interfere with intelligibility, the child’s ability to be understood.
A phonological disorder focuses on predictable patterns/rule-based errors (e.g., fronting, stopping, and final consonant deletion) that affect more than one sound.
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is neurological speech sound disorder in which the precision and consistency of movements needed to produce speech sounds are impaired. The brain has difficulty planning for speech.
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Receptive & Expressive Language
Some children have problems with receptive language, or comprehension of language. They may have trouble:
Understanding what people mean when they use gestures, like shrugging or nodding;
Following directions;
Answering questions;
Understanding vocabulary
Some children have problems with expressive language, or use language. They may have trouble:
Asking questions;
naming objects;
using gestures;
putting words together into sentences;
learning songs and rhymes; and
using correct pronouns, prepositions, verb tenses, plural forms, etc
Children can have problems with both understanding and talking.
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Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)
Communication devices, systems, strategies and tools that replace or support spoken language are known as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). These tools support a person who has difficulties communicating using speech.
Augmentative communication is when you add something to your speech (eg. sign language, pictures, a letter board). This can make your message clearer to your listener.
Alternative Communication is when you are not able to speak or when your speech is not understood by others. In this case, you need a different way to communicate.
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Stuttering
People who stutter may have more disfluencies and different types of disfluencies. They may repeat parts of words (repetitions), stretch a sound out for a long time (prolongations), or have a hard time getting a word out (blocks).
Stuttering is more than just disfluencies. Stuttering also may include tension and negative feelings about talking. It may get in the way of how you talk to others. You may want to hide your stuttering. So, you may avoid certain words or situations. For example, you may not want to talk on the phone if that makes you stutter more.
Stuttering can change from day to day. You may have times when you are fluent and times when you stutter more. Stress or excitement can lead to more stuttering.
Stuttering is a verbal diversity (Nina Reeves, Stuttering Therapy Resources, 2019). Stuttering should be viewed as one example of how people speak...not disordered or bad; simply different.