Speech Disorders: Various Types and Treatments

Posted by speechlink on August 27th, 2019

What is Speech?

Speech is the process of giving out specific sounds conveying certain meaning to the listeners. A speech disorder is a condition which can affect the person’s ability for producing the type of sounds that can create words.

In this process of effective communication people convey their thoughts, ideas and feelings to the others. Speech needs a complete co-ordination of multiple body parts like chest, neck, head and abdomen etc. Let us explore the various types of speech disorders and the various treatment options available.

What is Speech Disorder?

Speech disorders or speech defects is not the same as language disorders. It affects a person’s ability to produce various forms of sounds that can enable him/her to communicate. This type of defect prevents people from producing a typical sound on the other hand language disorders affect the ability to learn certain types of words and understand them. But both speech and language defect make it difficult for the people to convey their feelings and thoughts.

What are the Various Types of Speech Disorders?

Some of the common types of speech disorders include apraxia, dysarthria and stuttering etc.

Stuttering:

This refers to a speech disorder which interrupts the flow of speech. People who stutter can experience these types of disruptions.

Blocks:

This type of defect happens when people know what exactly they want to say but cannot produce the necessary sounds. This type of defect make the people feel that their words are struck.

Repetitions:

This happens when people repeat vowels, sounds and words repeatedly.

Prolongations:

It is stretching or drawing out certain specific words.

What are the various treatment options?

The type of treatment depends on the severity of speech defects and the underlying cause. The treatment option includes:

• Speech therapy exercises focuses on the purpose of building familiarity with certain types of sounds and words.
• It also includes certain physical exercises that can strengthen the muscles producing that sounds.
Given here are a few commonly chosen treatment options.

Target Selection:

This involves a person practicing certain specific words or certain type of sounds for the purpose of familiarizing themselves with a particular speech pattern. Examples of this type of therapy targets difficult sounds or words triggering the distorted speech.

Contextual use:

For this, speech language experts teach people to recognize certain types of sounds in different types of syllable-based context.

Contrast Therapy:

This type of therapy includes practicing of certain word pairs containing one or different types of speech sound. For instance, word pair like “beat” and “feet” or “dough” or “show” can be difficult to produce.

Oral-motor Treatment:

This type of approach focuses on improving the over and all muscle strength, motor control and breath control. These set of exercises help in developing fluency and produce smoother speech that can sound more natural and spontaneous.

Oral-motor therapy

The oral-motor therapy approach focuses on improving muscle strength, motor control, and breath control. These exercises can help people develop fluency, which produces smoother speech that sounds more natural.