Speech Vs. Language

Speech vs. Language (There's a difference!)

Many people can be confused about whether their child has a speech or a language disorder (or both). Well, there is a difference between Speech and Language.

Speech is the ability to produce sounds. The physical means of communicating. A Speech disorder is an important of articulation of speech sounds, fluency, and/or voice.

Whereas...

Language is a socially shared set of rules that involves comprehension (receptive) and use (expressive) of a spoken, written, and/or other symbolic systems. A language disorder may involve a breakdown in the form of language (phonology, morphology, syntax), the content of language (semantics) or the functional/social use of language (pragmatics).

It is possible for someone to have both a speech and a language delay/disorder.

For more information regarding speech and/or language components, please click the links below!

• Components of Speech
• Components of Language

Information from this section was collected from www.ASHA.org