SPEECH AND

LANGUAGE
IMPAIRMENTS AND
DISORDERS
UNIT 3:LESSON 1
 speech and language
impairment
-Children’s early years in school are an important and challenging stage of their
development. Those who suffer from speech and language disorders face a more
important and more challenging journey. Children with language impairments have
difficulty processing language,communicating with others, and formulating
responses appropriately (Harris et al.,2009).

-Speech and language impairments are generally defined as disorders that

greatly affect the child’s ability to read,write,speak, and understand.
 from a broader perspective, children with speech and
language impairments have difficulty with the following:

• Spelling
• Reading comprehension
• Reading accuracy
• phonological awareness and
• writing
in school, children with language and
speech impairments have common
problem such as:
• communicating with classmates and teachers
• understanding what the classmates and teachers say
• giving oral presentations and recitations and
• participating in class discussions
Several studies as cited Harris et al., (2009) revealed that speech and
language impairments do not just affect the way children speak, read,
comprehend, and write, but also have an impact on their numeracy skills.

Parents and teachers can notice and diagnose if such problems occur by
assessing and evaluating children’s reading achievement. Speech
impairments can be articulate,fluency, and voice disorder. Meanwhile,
language impairments include phonological (sound), morphological
(words), semantic (word meaning), syntactical (sentence), and
pragmatic (the meaning of language in a social context) difficulties
(ProjectIdeal, 2013).
The normal pattern of speech development adapted from
Laule (2017) is illustrated in the table below:
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
(ASHA) classified and explained the different children’s
speech and language impairments. The following are
its classifications and explanations.
 speech disorders
1. Apraxia signs:
• Trouble planning and saying • The child inconsistently pronounces
words, even if the muscles work words,cannot put the correct stress on a
fine. They know what to say, syllable or a word,may change the sound of
but can’t get their mouth to do the word,can say only short words.
it.

help to a child with aoraxia:

why it happens: • Practice with pictures and
• doctors believe that one of the main
sounds.
causes of this is brain damage
caused by genetic
disorder,syndrome,stroke,or brain
injury.
 speech disorders
2. dysarthria signs:
• Slurred speech, slow or fast
• Weak mouth muscles make it
talking, quiet voice,cannot
hard to talk clearly.
move the jaw,tongue,or lips
very well,sounds like a robot or
choppy.
why it happens:
• Brain damage from birth
stroke,injury, or illnes.

help to a child with dysarthria:

• constantly talk to the child,watch and pay attention while the child
talks,let the child know if you have difficulty understanding
him/her,ask the child “yes” or “no” questions if you understand what
he/she says.
 speech disorders
3. orofacial myofunctional
disorders (OMD) signs:
• Problems with the muscles used • The child has limited tongue movement,has
for eating, swallowing, and difficulty saying some sounds like “s” in
talking “soap”,”sh” in “shore”,or “j” in “just”,has
difficulty closing the lips to swallow.

why it happens:
• cause of OMD is blocked nasal
passages,misplaced tongue,or help to a child with orofacial
sucking and chewing habits. myofunctional disorders (OMD)
• Speech therapy to correct
muscle use.
 speech disorders
4. speech sound disorder
• Difficulty saying sounds signs:
correctly. This can involve • Substituting sounds (like saying
substituting, omitting,or adding “wabbit” for “rabbit”), leaving
sounds. The problem may be sounds out,or adding sounds.
with one specific sound or
many.
help to a child with speech sound
why it happens: disorder:
• If he/she has autism, Down • teaching child to make sounds correctly,
syndrome, hearing impairment, practicing sounds of different words,and
or brain damage. practicing longer and dfficult sounds to
make.
 speech disorders
WHen someone stutters, he may do the following:
5. stuttering
• Repeating sounds or words,or • Part-word repetitions: “She w-w-will eat”
pausing unexpectedly while • One word repetition: “This is a bow-bow-bow”
speaking,cannot speak • Prolonged sounds: “BBBBBernard is my friend”
smoothly without “uh”, “ohm”, • Blocks or stops: I want to eat (long pause) fries.
or “you know”.

why it happens:
• may have been inherited help to a child with stuttering:
• can be treated through direct and indirect
because some of his/her family strategies. The direct strategy includes several
members stutter or may have exercise to improve the way he/she speaks.
brain problems. Meanwhile, the indirect is someone’s adjustment to
the child’s pace.
 language disorders
1. preschool language disorder
• A child between 3 to 5 years old may have signs:
difficulty following instructions and • Trouble following instructions, limited
understanding questions. Difficulty vocabulary,difficulty forming
understanding or using language sentences.
appropriately for their age.

teacher or adult may help a child with preschool language disorder the ff;

• Talk to the child as often as possible

• Read books or stories to the child.
• Familiarize the child with signs,gestures,and other landmark places.
• Speak to the child Mother Tongue.
• Ask the child questions and give him/her enough time to answer.
• Minimize the child’s use of gadgets.
 language disorders
2. learning disabilities signs:
• The child has difficulty expressing
• A child may experience problems in
his/her ideas, cannot easily learn new
writing,reading,and spelling. One of the
words that he/she hears or
most common disabilities which may affect
reads,difficulty understanding
a child in dyslexia (a reading problems).
questions and instructions,cannot
understand what he/she reads,difficulty
learning letters and numbers.
why it happens:
• can be caused by various
neurological factors or processing help to a child with
difficulties learning disabilities:
• Specialized educational
support,tutoring,and assistive
technology.
 language disorders
3. selective mutism
• A child with selective mutism selectively signs:
• Talking freely at home but remaining
talks at selected times and places. For
silent at school or with
instance, a child talks at home but never
peers,selectively talking ranges for
talks at all when at school or vice versa
months,selectively talks despite having
even how hard someone tries to talk to
no problems with speech or langueage
him/her.

why it happens:
• Often associated with
anxiety,trauma,or other emotional
factors.
 teachers and adults may help a child with
selective mutism by these techniques

• Stimulus Fading- The child is slowly introduced to persons which

he/she trusts talking with.

• Shaping- The child is rewarded every time he/she communicates or

talks to friends,teachers,or relatives.

• Self-Modeling- The child may watch his/her own videos talking in a

comfortable situations.
 laule (2017) suggested some ways for adults to support children’s speech
and language development as follows:
1.Talk to the child at birth.
2.Respond to child’s coos and babbling.
3.Play simple games with the child.
4.Have a habit of keep on talking with the child.
5.Read books to the child.
6.Sing songs to the child.
7.Use gestures along with words when communicating with the child
8.Never force the child to speak.
9.Expand or elaborate on what the child tries to say.
10.Describe what the child does,feels,and hears.
11.Listen attentively to the child. Make sure that you get close to him/her when
he/she talks and always have eye contact with him/her.
12.Encourage the child to tell a story and share information.
13.Ask the child questions.
14.Model good ways of speaking.
 THANK
YOU
I HOPE YOU LEARNED SOMETHING FROM
TO DAYS DISCUSSION