Language and speech impairments define a number of communication disorders that have adverse effects on the reading, talking, understanding, and writing ability of a child. It is predominantly considered a disability of high incidence (Bishop, 2014). A majority of children that seek special education services are attacked by the speech and language impairments.
According to Bishop (2014), the three types of speech impairments include fluency disorders, articulation disorders, and voice disorders. A fluency disorder entails the problems to do with timing and rhythm in speech and is often characterized by repetitions, sound prolongations, hesitations, words, syllables or phrases. Some of the most common fluency disorders incorporate cluttering which is the extremely fast and jerky speech. Another fluency disorder is stuttering which entails rapid-fire repetition of vowel or consonant sounds, especially at the start of prolongations, words, interjections, hesitations and whole verbal blocks (Bishop, 2014). Articulation disorders comprise of all types of errors in speech sound production that may be linked to anatomical or physiological limitations in the muscular, skeletal or neuromuscular support for the production of speech. Such kinds of disorders entail omissions, distortions, and substitutions. Lastly, voice disorders are problems that are linked to the quality of an individual’s voice that results from malfunctions in the larynx. Complications in the voice are characterized by the abnormal production or absence of vocal pitch, quality, resonance, loudness, and duration (Bishop, 2014).
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Bishop (2014) reiterated that language impairments are categorized into five significant facets: morphological disorders, phonological disorders, semantic disorders, pragmatic disorders, and syntactical disorders. Morphological disorders consist of problems that arise due to morphological infections. Phonological disorders entail the abnormal organization of the system of phonology or a significant deficit in speech perception and production. Arguably, Owens (2015) mentioned that a learner that possesses a phonological disorder may be described as being cumbersome to understand. A particular kind of phonological disorder is apraxia where a student may desire to speak but has difficulty on what to talk about and the sort of motor movements to utilize. Semantic disorders involve cases of low development of vocabulary, incorrect usage of the meaning of words, and the inability to comprehend the meaning of words. Such learners indicate restrictions on the meaning of words and difficulty in lots of word meanings. A syntactic deficit defines a scenario of where one has trouble in the acquisition of the rules that direct word order and other grammar aspects, for instance, subject-verb agreement. Finally, pragmatic difficulties involve problems in understanding and language use in separate social contexts. In this regard, the learners may lack basic knowledge of the rules governing eye contact, requesting information and introduction of topical ideas (Bishop, 2014).
Communication has a profound effect on the development of a child. Disturbances that emanate from speech and language can have a profound impact on various aspects of life for the children. In some, it leads to total isolation from their peers and educational environment.
It is therefore essential for educators to develop an effective teaching strategy that assists in addressing this kind of problem (Bishop, 2014). The speech pathologists should come in handy in providing a variety of services that are geared towards helping the learners to develop practical skills in communication. At this assistive technology can equally be resourceful. That can come in the form of computer software packages that are suited to help develop speech and language skills. Also, such students can also make use of the augmentative or alternative communication devices, for instance, the non-electronic communication boards Owens (2015).
References
Bishop, D. V. (2014). Pragmatic language impairment: A correlate of SLI, a distinct subgroup, or part of the autistic continuum?. In Speech and language impairments in children (pp. 113-128). Psychology press.
Owens Jr, R. E. (2015). Language development: An introduction . Pearson.
