What is disordered speech?
Disordered speech involves difficulty with and/or slowness in the development of a person’s speech. Speech disorders refer to multiple conditions in which a person has problems constructing and organizing the speech sounds needed to communicate verbally with others.
What is a functional speech disorder?
A difficulty learning to make specific speech sounds. Children with just a few speech-sound difficulties (i.e. lisp; inability/problems pronouncing ‘r’ ‘l’ or ‘th’) are described as having a functional speech disorders. This commonly occurs at the phonetic level which makes it difficult for them to say the sounds needed for articulate speech. People who fall into this category have nothing wrong with their articulators (lips, tongue, palate, etc..), but instead have difficulty at the phonetic level, making the pronunciation of speech their main difficulty.
What is an articulation speech disorder?
Often referred to as the difficulty with the motor act of articulating speech sounds. Commonly we see a disruption caused by weakness of oral musculature (Dysarthria) or the inability to plan motor movements needed for specific speech sounds(CAS). Such problems impact the nervous systems which also affect the timing of multiple facets needed for speech production including respiration, phonation, prosody, etc.
- Children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) or Dysarthria have articulation disorders (also known as motor speech disorders). Children with anatomical differences are also known to have articulation disorders (cleft lip and palate, tongue-tie, craniofacial anomalies).
Speech Disorder Exercises