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Collab Topic - Speech Therapy
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A speech disorder is any condition that affects a person’s ability to produce sounds that create words. Damage to muscles, nerves, and vocal structures can cause it. Examples include stuttering and ataxia.
Speech is one of the main ways in which people communicate their thoughts, feelings, and ideas with others. The act of speaking requires the precise coordination of multiple body parts, including the head, neck, chest, and abdomen.
In this article, we explore what speech disorders are and the different types. We also cover the symptoms, causes, diagnosis, and treatment of speech disorders.Speech disorders affect a person’s ability to form the sounds that allow them to communicate with other people. They are not the same as language disorders.
Speech disorders prevent people from forming correct speech sounds, while language disorders affect a person’s ability to learn words or understand what others say to them.
However, both speech and language disorders can make it more difficult for a person to express their thoughts and feelings to others. Types:
Speech disorders can affect people of all ages.
Some types of speech disorder include stuttering, apraxia, and dysarthria. We discuss each of these types below:
Stuttering:
Stuttering refers to a speech disorder that interrupts the flow of speech. People who stutter can experience the following types of disruption:
Repetitions occur when people involuntarily repeat sounds, vowels, or words.
Blocks happen when people know what they want to say but have difficulty making the necessary speech sounds. Blocks may cause someone to feel as though their words are stuck.
Prolongations refer to the stretching or drawing out of particular sounds or words.The symptoms of speech disorders vary widely depending on the cause and severity of the disorder. People can develop multiple speech disorders with different symptoms.Causes
Causes of speech disorders can include:
brain damage due to a stroke or head injury
muscle weakness
damaged vocal cords
a degenerative disease, such as Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
dementia
cancer that affects the mouth or throat
autism
Down syndrome
hearing loss. Diagnosis:
A speech-language pathologist (SLP) is a healthcare professional who specializes in speech and language disorders.
An SLP will evaluate a person for groups of symptoms that indicate one type of speech disorder. To make an accurate diagnosis, SLPs need to rule out other speech and language disorders and medical conditions.The type of treatment will typically depend on the severity of the speech disorder and its underlying cause.
Treatment options can include:
speech therapy exercises that focus on building familiarity with certain words or sounds
physical exercises that focus on strengthening the muscles that produce speech sounds
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