Do you panic when you speak out loud?You focus on just trying to get the words to come out clear but you know those s sounds just don’t sound right. Then you hear people snicker and giggle around you because they think it is kind of funny. You try so hard to speak clearly, but you can’t do it. It’s simple, you just want your lisp speech to go away, forever.
A lisp speech disorder is a big speech impediment that people all over the world have. Having a lisp can make life really difficult, especially when talking publicly. You hate meeting new people because when you meet someone new, you are nervous and when you are nervous, your lisp worsens. All you want is to overcome stammering so you can speak with ease and confidence.
The good is that there are steps that you can in the comfort of your own home to get rid of that lisp. For example, reading out load can help break down a lisp. When you read, or sing out loud, you put special attention on how those words are rolling off your tongue. The more you read and sing, the more clearer you will sound. Another way to help overcome your lisp is to avoid eye contact when talking to a person. Simply look at the bridge of their nose, and put a strong and focused effort into those words you are speaking.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Speech Disorders
Speech disorders are fairly easy to recognize by a layperson. The speech may be difficult to understand, articulation may be unclear, it may sound ‘stuttered’ or fluency may by disrupted. Although most listeners tolerate speech disorders, individuals with speech problems typically do not like the fact that attention is drawn to their speech and may wish to obtain help from speech therapists.
The Evilution of Communication
Creative Commons License photo credit: Torley
Speech disorders refer to several conditions in which a person has difficulty communicating by mouth. Speech is one of the primary ways we communicate with those around us. It is an effective way to monitor normal growth and development as well as to identify potential problems.
Disfluencies are rhythm disorders that are usually characterized by the repetition of a sound, word or phrase. Stuttering is perhaps the most serious disffluency. Articulation deficiencies involve sounds made incorrectly or inappropriately. Voice disorders involve abnormalities in the quality, pitch and loudness of the sound.
There are many potential causes of speech impairment. The most common cause is mental retardation. Other causes may include.
* Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD)
* Autism
* Cerebral palsy
* Cleft Palate
* Disorders of the palate
* Hearing impairment
* Learning disability
* Schizophrenia
* Vocal cord injury
However, in many cases is unknown. Child abuse may also be a cause in some cases.
Delayed speech development is one of the common symptoms observed in developmentally delayed children. It occurs in five to 10 percent of all children. Boys are three to four times as likely to have speech disorders as girls.
Symptoms …
Disfluency
* Repetition of sounds, words or phrase after age 4
* Frustration with attempts to communicate
* Heard jerking while talking
* Eye blinking while talking
* Embarrassment with speech.
Articulation Deficiency.
* Unintelligible speech by age 3
* Leaves out consonants at the beginning of words by age 3.
* Leaves out consonants at the end of words by age 4
* Persistent problems with articulation after age 7
* Leaves out sound where they should occur
* Distorts sounds.
* Substitutes an incorrect sound for a correct one.
Voice Disorders.
* Pitch deviations.
* Deviation in the loudness and quality of the voice
* Stuttering it quite common
* Cluttering, a speech disorders that has similarities to stuttering.
* Dysprosody is the rarest neurological speech disorder. It is characterized by alterations in intensity, in the timing of utterance segments, and in rhythm, cadence, and intonation of words.
* Difficulty in producing specific speech sounds may be considered a speech sound disorder, and subdivided into Articulation Disorders (also called Phonetic Disorder) and Phonemic Disorder.
Treatments
Many of these types of disorders can be treated by speech therapy, but others require medical attention by a doctor in phoniatrics. Other treatments include correction of organic conditions and psychotherapy.
Social Effects Of Speech Disorders.
Suffering from a speech disorder can have negative social effects, especially among young children. Those with a speech disorders can be targets of bullying that can result in disorders can cause some sufferers to be shy and have poor public speaking skills. Some of the famous people with speech impediments are..
* Humphrey Bogart, actor – Lisp
* Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister - Lisp, Cluttering and Stutter.
* Claudius, Roman Emperor – stutter
* Elton John, Singer / Songwriter – Lisp
* Marilyn Monroe, Actress – Stutter
* Barbara Walters, Television Personality - Rhotacism and Lisp
* Bruce Willis, Actor and Director – Stutter
* Tiger Woods, Golfer – Stutter
* Nicholas Brendon, Actor – Stutter
The Evilution of Communication
Creative Commons License photo credit: Torley
Speech disorders refer to several conditions in which a person has difficulty communicating by mouth. Speech is one of the primary ways we communicate with those around us. It is an effective way to monitor normal growth and development as well as to identify potential problems.
Disfluencies are rhythm disorders that are usually characterized by the repetition of a sound, word or phrase. Stuttering is perhaps the most serious disffluency. Articulation deficiencies involve sounds made incorrectly or inappropriately. Voice disorders involve abnormalities in the quality, pitch and loudness of the sound.
There are many potential causes of speech impairment. The most common cause is mental retardation. Other causes may include.
* Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD)
* Autism
* Cerebral palsy
* Cleft Palate
* Disorders of the palate
* Hearing impairment
* Learning disability
* Schizophrenia
* Vocal cord injury
However, in many cases is unknown. Child abuse may also be a cause in some cases.
Delayed speech development is one of the common symptoms observed in developmentally delayed children. It occurs in five to 10 percent of all children. Boys are three to four times as likely to have speech disorders as girls.
Symptoms …
Disfluency
* Repetition of sounds, words or phrase after age 4
* Frustration with attempts to communicate
* Heard jerking while talking
* Eye blinking while talking
* Embarrassment with speech.
Articulation Deficiency.
* Unintelligible speech by age 3
* Leaves out consonants at the beginning of words by age 3.
* Leaves out consonants at the end of words by age 4
* Persistent problems with articulation after age 7
* Leaves out sound where they should occur
* Distorts sounds.
* Substitutes an incorrect sound for a correct one.
Voice Disorders.
* Pitch deviations.
* Deviation in the loudness and quality of the voice
* Stuttering it quite common
* Cluttering, a speech disorders that has similarities to stuttering.
* Dysprosody is the rarest neurological speech disorder. It is characterized by alterations in intensity, in the timing of utterance segments, and in rhythm, cadence, and intonation of words.
* Difficulty in producing specific speech sounds may be considered a speech sound disorder, and subdivided into Articulation Disorders (also called Phonetic Disorder) and Phonemic Disorder.
Treatments
Many of these types of disorders can be treated by speech therapy, but others require medical attention by a doctor in phoniatrics. Other treatments include correction of organic conditions and psychotherapy.
Social Effects Of Speech Disorders.
Suffering from a speech disorder can have negative social effects, especially among young children. Those with a speech disorders can be targets of bullying that can result in disorders can cause some sufferers to be shy and have poor public speaking skills. Some of the famous people with speech impediments are..
* Humphrey Bogart, actor – Lisp
* Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister - Lisp, Cluttering and Stutter.
* Claudius, Roman Emperor – stutter
* Elton John, Singer / Songwriter – Lisp
* Marilyn Monroe, Actress – Stutter
* Barbara Walters, Television Personality - Rhotacism and Lisp
* Bruce Willis, Actor and Director – Stutter
* Tiger Woods, Golfer – Stutter
* Nicholas Brendon, Actor – Stutter
Speech Therapy: An Overview on Fluency Disorders and Tips on How to Deal With It
One of the main categories of speech problems in need for speech therapy are fluency disorders. However, there are different types of fluency disorders, even though they may all seem the same. Each type has its own cause, and defining characteristics that make them stand out from one another.
There are basically six main types of fluency disorders, while some are considered to be other conditions that are related to fluency disorders.
Normal Developmental Disfluency
Normal developmental disfluency, is a fluency disorder that is a lot of times mistaken to be stuttering. This condition occurs with children from ages 1:6- 6 years old, although the peak of the condition is considered to be 2-4 years of age.
A lot of parents may be concerned of the way their child speaks, but in reality, this is a normal condition that every child goes through. Normal developmental disfluency is a normal part of a child’s development. So there is really no need to worry at all.
A child would normally get over this stage as his speech skills develop. However, a proper environment, and interaction is needed for that to happen. If a child is pressured by his parents or people around him about his speech, the higher the probability that his disfluency would become a problem in the future and could develop to stuttering.
Stuttering
Stuttering is a disorder of childhood (developmental) that is characterized by an abnormally high frequency or duration of stoppages in the forward flow of speech. Although normal developmental disfluency has its own share of stoppages, stuttering on the other hand has some extra characteristics that normal developmental disfluency doesn’t have.
What makes stuttering different, from normal developmental disfluency, is that stuttering has escape behaviors, avoidance behaviors, and other secondary behaviors. These so called behaviors are also called physical concomitants. Some examples are eye blinks, head nods, jaw tremors and total body gyrations.
Neurogenic Disfluency
This kind of disfluency is a result of an identifiable neuropathology in a person that has no history of fluency problems prior to occurrence of the pathology. People who have accidents that caused brain problems, which induced their disfluency, fall into this category.
Neurogenic disfluency has similar characteristics as stuttering, including the physical behaviors like eye blinks and tremors. The thing is that, the main problem in conditions like these is not fluency at all, but the lesser control of muscles needed in speech production.
Psychogenic Disfluency
A disfluency with no found evidence of neurological dysfunction and no history of developmental stuttering. It is of sudden onset and attributed to an identifiable emotional crisis. Can be grouped into three categories namely: emotionally based, manipulative, and malingering disfluencies
An example of this kind of disfluency is when a person starts to stutter when a specific other is around. For instance, a student who is afraid of her teacher, starts to stutter every time her teacher is around but speaks fluently when around her friends and family.
Language Bases Disfluency
This is a disfluency that is attributed to the development of linguistic sophistication. The main root of the problem here would be language problems, which would require language based therapy rather than fluency-based therapy.
Mixed Fluency Failures
These are fluency failures that are characterized by overlapping causative factors. Speech pattern observed is the result of a blend of two or more factors/disfluency.
Cluttering
This is a condition that is related to fluency disorders. It is considered to be the extreme of stuttering. It is a disorder of timing and rhythm of speech where the person speaks too fast that his speech can’t be comprehended. The thing is, a clutterer isn’t aware that he is cluttering, while a stutterer is very much aware that he stutters.
Speech Therapy Assessment Tips For Fluency Disorders
During the assessment of an individual with suspected fluency disorder, there are some things to remember to make the assessment more comprehensive and useful. Here are some of those critical points to take note of during assessment.
Benefits Of Obtaining Both Reading and Conversation Sample
It is more beneficial to obtain both reading and conversation sample from school children and adults because this would give more reliability and credibility to the samples taken.
Since stuttering varies in different situations, a reading and conversation sample would allow the clinician to see the behaviors of the person in two different tasks. A conversational speech sample is likely to have more variability, while a reading passage would likely have less variability.
Information To Assess Motivation
Through interview, a therapist can learn a lot from his client. In fact, insight about the client’s motivation could be seen by asking the following questions like ”What do you believe caused you to stutter?”, “Has you stuttering changed or caused you more problems recently?, “Why did you come in for help at the present time?”, “ Are there times or situations when you stutter more? Less? What are they?”.
Benefits Of Continuing Evaluation
No individual could be understood in an hour or two; that’s why continuing of evaluation is recommended. The clinician might overlook an important element at times and some times a vital clue will not be present in the samples of behavior taken from the limited time of the evaluation period.
Note The Difference When Assessing Feelings and Attitudes
Assessing a school-age child’s feelings and attitudes would require the clinician to establish rapport and to get to know the child much better after some time, because the clinician’s judgment is also a fair measurement in the case of school-age children.
Talking to the child and observing his behaviors would be necessary. When the clinician has known the child much better, he could administer the A-19 Scale to the child. Other methods could also be used such as “Worry Ladder” and “Hands Down” that could be found in the workbook, The School-Age Child Who Stutters: Working Effectively with Attitudes and Emotions.
For adults and adolescents assessment of feelings and attitudes are usually done by administering tools such as, the Modified Erickson Scale of Communication Attitudes, the Stutterer’s Self-Rating of Reactions to Speech Situations, the Perceptions of Stuttering Inventory and the Locus of Control of Behavior Scale.
Remember The Role Of The IEP Team
An Individualized Education Program (IEP) team is appointed to a child to be the ones to consider reports by the clinician and other information. They decide if the child meets the state’s eligibility standards and if the child’s stuttering has a negative effect on his education.
If a child is eligible for services measurable, the IEP team sets goals and short-term objectives for the child. They also provide services needed by the child for improvement in the educational setting.
Goals Of Trial Therapy
Trial therapy for a school-age child is done to understand what approach might work and what might be difficult for him. This could increase the child’s motivation and positive outlook for the treatment. In the case of adults and adolescents, trial therapy is done for 3 main reasons.
First, is to get an idea of how a client would respond to different therapy approaches. Second, is to make a differential diagnosis between developmental, neurological or psychological stuttering. Third, it gives a preview to the client of what to expect during therapy sessions, in effect it would give them motivation to go on their treatment.
There are basically six main types of fluency disorders, while some are considered to be other conditions that are related to fluency disorders.
Normal Developmental Disfluency
Normal developmental disfluency, is a fluency disorder that is a lot of times mistaken to be stuttering. This condition occurs with children from ages 1:6- 6 years old, although the peak of the condition is considered to be 2-4 years of age.
A lot of parents may be concerned of the way their child speaks, but in reality, this is a normal condition that every child goes through. Normal developmental disfluency is a normal part of a child’s development. So there is really no need to worry at all.
A child would normally get over this stage as his speech skills develop. However, a proper environment, and interaction is needed for that to happen. If a child is pressured by his parents or people around him about his speech, the higher the probability that his disfluency would become a problem in the future and could develop to stuttering.
Stuttering
Stuttering is a disorder of childhood (developmental) that is characterized by an abnormally high frequency or duration of stoppages in the forward flow of speech. Although normal developmental disfluency has its own share of stoppages, stuttering on the other hand has some extra characteristics that normal developmental disfluency doesn’t have.
What makes stuttering different, from normal developmental disfluency, is that stuttering has escape behaviors, avoidance behaviors, and other secondary behaviors. These so called behaviors are also called physical concomitants. Some examples are eye blinks, head nods, jaw tremors and total body gyrations.
Neurogenic Disfluency
This kind of disfluency is a result of an identifiable neuropathology in a person that has no history of fluency problems prior to occurrence of the pathology. People who have accidents that caused brain problems, which induced their disfluency, fall into this category.
Neurogenic disfluency has similar characteristics as stuttering, including the physical behaviors like eye blinks and tremors. The thing is that, the main problem in conditions like these is not fluency at all, but the lesser control of muscles needed in speech production.
Psychogenic Disfluency
A disfluency with no found evidence of neurological dysfunction and no history of developmental stuttering. It is of sudden onset and attributed to an identifiable emotional crisis. Can be grouped into three categories namely: emotionally based, manipulative, and malingering disfluencies
An example of this kind of disfluency is when a person starts to stutter when a specific other is around. For instance, a student who is afraid of her teacher, starts to stutter every time her teacher is around but speaks fluently when around her friends and family.
Language Bases Disfluency
This is a disfluency that is attributed to the development of linguistic sophistication. The main root of the problem here would be language problems, which would require language based therapy rather than fluency-based therapy.
Mixed Fluency Failures
These are fluency failures that are characterized by overlapping causative factors. Speech pattern observed is the result of a blend of two or more factors/disfluency.
Cluttering
This is a condition that is related to fluency disorders. It is considered to be the extreme of stuttering. It is a disorder of timing and rhythm of speech where the person speaks too fast that his speech can’t be comprehended. The thing is, a clutterer isn’t aware that he is cluttering, while a stutterer is very much aware that he stutters.
Speech Therapy Assessment Tips For Fluency Disorders
During the assessment of an individual with suspected fluency disorder, there are some things to remember to make the assessment more comprehensive and useful. Here are some of those critical points to take note of during assessment.
Benefits Of Obtaining Both Reading and Conversation Sample
It is more beneficial to obtain both reading and conversation sample from school children and adults because this would give more reliability and credibility to the samples taken.
Since stuttering varies in different situations, a reading and conversation sample would allow the clinician to see the behaviors of the person in two different tasks. A conversational speech sample is likely to have more variability, while a reading passage would likely have less variability.
Information To Assess Motivation
Through interview, a therapist can learn a lot from his client. In fact, insight about the client’s motivation could be seen by asking the following questions like ”What do you believe caused you to stutter?”, “Has you stuttering changed or caused you more problems recently?, “Why did you come in for help at the present time?”, “ Are there times or situations when you stutter more? Less? What are they?”.
Benefits Of Continuing Evaluation
No individual could be understood in an hour or two; that’s why continuing of evaluation is recommended. The clinician might overlook an important element at times and some times a vital clue will not be present in the samples of behavior taken from the limited time of the evaluation period.
Note The Difference When Assessing Feelings and Attitudes
Assessing a school-age child’s feelings and attitudes would require the clinician to establish rapport and to get to know the child much better after some time, because the clinician’s judgment is also a fair measurement in the case of school-age children.
Talking to the child and observing his behaviors would be necessary. When the clinician has known the child much better, he could administer the A-19 Scale to the child. Other methods could also be used such as “Worry Ladder” and “Hands Down” that could be found in the workbook, The School-Age Child Who Stutters: Working Effectively with Attitudes and Emotions.
For adults and adolescents assessment of feelings and attitudes are usually done by administering tools such as, the Modified Erickson Scale of Communication Attitudes, the Stutterer’s Self-Rating of Reactions to Speech Situations, the Perceptions of Stuttering Inventory and the Locus of Control of Behavior Scale.
Remember The Role Of The IEP Team
An Individualized Education Program (IEP) team is appointed to a child to be the ones to consider reports by the clinician and other information. They decide if the child meets the state’s eligibility standards and if the child’s stuttering has a negative effect on his education.
If a child is eligible for services measurable, the IEP team sets goals and short-term objectives for the child. They also provide services needed by the child for improvement in the educational setting.
Goals Of Trial Therapy
Trial therapy for a school-age child is done to understand what approach might work and what might be difficult for him. This could increase the child’s motivation and positive outlook for the treatment. In the case of adults and adolescents, trial therapy is done for 3 main reasons.
First, is to get an idea of how a client would respond to different therapy approaches. Second, is to make a differential diagnosis between developmental, neurological or psychological stuttering. Third, it gives a preview to the client of what to expect during therapy sessions, in effect it would give them motivation to go on their treatment.
Introduction To Speech Therapy
One of the not so noticed areas of rehabilitation medicine is Speech Therapy. In fact, a lot of people may not even know that something like this existed. It may be the case that this is your first time to encounter the field or you may have heard it somewhere, but don’t fully understand what the practice is all about.
The sad truth about Speech Therapy is that you may not encounter it unless the situation calls for it. However, getting to know what the practice is can be very beneficial information.
What Is Speech Therapy
As the name suggests, speech therapy deals with speech problems that an individual may encounter. However, the field of Speech Pathology doesn’t only tackle speech, but also language and other communication problems that people may already have due to birth, or people acquired due to accidents or other misfortunes.
Speech therapy is basically a treatment that people of all ages can undergo through, to fix their speech. Although speech therapy alone would focus on fixing speech related problems like treating one’s vocal pitch, volume, tone, rhythm and articulation.
Goals Of Speech Therapy
Speech Therapy aims for an individual to develop or get back effective communication skills at its optimal level. Recovery mainly depends on the case and severity of your problem, especially if your speech problem is acquired, meaning you had normal speech skills before then you had an accident or abrupt incident that caused your current speech problem; thus, you may or may not get back your old level of speech function.
Speech Problems
Speech problems are mainly categorized into three namely: Articulation Disorders, Resonance or Voice Disorders and Fluency Disorders. Each disorder deals with a different pathology and uses different techniques for therapy.
Articulation Disorders
Articulation Disorders are basically problems with physical features used for articulation. These features include lips, tongue, teeth, hard and soft palate, jaws and inner cheeks. If you have an Articulation Disorder, then you may have a problem producing words or syllables correctly to the point that people you communicate to can’t understand what you are saying.
Resonance or Voice Disorders
Resonance, more popularly known as, Voice Disorders mainly deal with problems regarding phonation or the production of the raw sound itself. Most probably, you have a Voice Disorder when the sound that your larynx or voice box produces comes out to be muffled, nasal, intermittent, weak, too loud or any other characteristic not pertaining to normal.
Fluency Disorders
Fluency Disorders are speech problems with regard to the fluency of your speech. There are some cases that you talk too fast, in which people can’t understand you, thus, you have a Fluency Disorder of Cluttering. The most common Fluency Disorder however, is Stuttering, which is a disorder of fluency where your speech is constantly interrupted by blocks, fillers, stoppages, repetitions or sound prolongations.
Who Gives Speech Therapy
A highly trained professional, called a SLP or a Speech and Language Pathologist, gives Speech Therapy. Speech and Language Pathologists are informally more popularly known as Speech Therapists. They are professionals who have education and training with human communication development and disorders.
Speech and Language pathologists assess, diagnose and treat people with speech, communication and language disorders. However, they are not doctors, but are considered to be specialists on the field of medical rehabilitation.
The sad truth about Speech Therapy is that you may not encounter it unless the situation calls for it. However, getting to know what the practice is can be very beneficial information.
What Is Speech Therapy
As the name suggests, speech therapy deals with speech problems that an individual may encounter. However, the field of Speech Pathology doesn’t only tackle speech, but also language and other communication problems that people may already have due to birth, or people acquired due to accidents or other misfortunes.
Speech therapy is basically a treatment that people of all ages can undergo through, to fix their speech. Although speech therapy alone would focus on fixing speech related problems like treating one’s vocal pitch, volume, tone, rhythm and articulation.
Goals Of Speech Therapy
Speech Therapy aims for an individual to develop or get back effective communication skills at its optimal level. Recovery mainly depends on the case and severity of your problem, especially if your speech problem is acquired, meaning you had normal speech skills before then you had an accident or abrupt incident that caused your current speech problem; thus, you may or may not get back your old level of speech function.
Speech Problems
Speech problems are mainly categorized into three namely: Articulation Disorders, Resonance or Voice Disorders and Fluency Disorders. Each disorder deals with a different pathology and uses different techniques for therapy.
Articulation Disorders
Articulation Disorders are basically problems with physical features used for articulation. These features include lips, tongue, teeth, hard and soft palate, jaws and inner cheeks. If you have an Articulation Disorder, then you may have a problem producing words or syllables correctly to the point that people you communicate to can’t understand what you are saying.
Resonance or Voice Disorders
Resonance, more popularly known as, Voice Disorders mainly deal with problems regarding phonation or the production of the raw sound itself. Most probably, you have a Voice Disorder when the sound that your larynx or voice box produces comes out to be muffled, nasal, intermittent, weak, too loud or any other characteristic not pertaining to normal.
Fluency Disorders
Fluency Disorders are speech problems with regard to the fluency of your speech. There are some cases that you talk too fast, in which people can’t understand you, thus, you have a Fluency Disorder of Cluttering. The most common Fluency Disorder however, is Stuttering, which is a disorder of fluency where your speech is constantly interrupted by blocks, fillers, stoppages, repetitions or sound prolongations.
Who Gives Speech Therapy
A highly trained professional, called a SLP or a Speech and Language Pathologist, gives Speech Therapy. Speech and Language Pathologists are informally more popularly known as Speech Therapists. They are professionals who have education and training with human communication development and disorders.
Speech and Language pathologists assess, diagnose and treat people with speech, communication and language disorders. However, they are not doctors, but are considered to be specialists on the field of medical rehabilitation.
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