Alveolar – A class of sounds made when the tongue touches or is close to the bumpy front part of the roof of the mouth, called the alveolar ridge. English alveolar consonants include /n, t, d, s, z, ch, l, r/. (I refer to this as "Al" to students)
Articulation – The movement of the tongue, lips, and jaw to make speech sounds. Articulation is one part of the whole speech process that includes respiration, phonation, articulation, resonance, and prosody. Articulation problems are common after a stroke or brain injury as part of dysarthria.
ASHA – The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association is the organization that certifies Speech-Language Pathologists in the United States. The annual ASHA convention is held every year in November in various locations around the country, featuring continuing education and an exhibit hall for 10,000-14,000 attending speech pathologists, audiologists, and students.
Assessment – The evaluation phase of therapy in which a speech therapist determines whether an impairment exists, the degree and nature of the impairment, and sets the direction for therapy, usually with a written report summarizing the findings. Assessments may include formal or standardized tests or may be informal, consisting of an interview or a variety of non-standardized tasks. Many assessments include a combination of formal and informal measures.
Attention – A cognitive process of allocating processing resources to certain information. Attention is addressed in a hierarchy of focused, sustained, selective, and alternating. Attention is required for memory, and is frequently impaired after brain injury. Visual Attention Therapy is an app designed to work on attention to both sides of personal space.
Auditory Comprehension – Understanding words through listening. Auditory comprehension is often impaired in aphasia. It can be relatively in-tact for single words or simple sentences, but impaired for complex sentences, grammatical words, or when there are background distractions. C
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) – Communication methods used by a person with a communication disorder. to enhance or replace spoken or written communication. AAC can be unaided or aided by a device or communication tool, and can be low-tech (paper or equivalent) or high-tech (computer, smartphone, or dedicated device). AlphaTopics is an AAC app for dysarthria and aphasia.
Autism (ASD) – A neurodevelopmental disorder that often involves impaired social interaction, decreased communication skills, and repetitive behaviors.
Bilabial – A class of sounds made with both lips. In English, the bilabial consonant sounds are /m, b, p/.
Category – A class of things sharing a similar attribute. Read more about the Importance of Categories in speech therapy. Category Therapy is an app designed to work on understanding and organizing categories.
Circumlocution – Literally talking around a word, a method of describing a concept. Circumlocution is a strategy used by people with anomia, as well as a common characteristic of aphasic speech. This approach is used in Naming Therapy in the Describe activity. See also Semantic Feature Analysis.
Cognition – The mental processes related to knowledge, including awareness, attention, perception, reasoning, memory, language, and judgement.
Cognitive-Communication – Cognition as it relates to communication. Disorders of cognition often have a negative effect on communication. Read more about cognitive-communication disorders.
Communication – The transmission of a message from a sender to a recipient through a medium (e.g. verbal, non-verbal, written).
Communication Disorder – Any disorder that impairs communication. Communication disorders may affect speech (speech-sound disorder, articulation disorder, motor speech disorder, apraxia of speech), language (aphasia, expressive language disorder), pragmatics (autism, frontal head injury), fluency (stuttering), literacy (dyslexia, agraphia, alexia), cognition (dyscalculia, dementia), or voice. Learn more about communication disorders acquired after stroke.
Compensatory Strategy – A method of carrying out a task when the easiest or most direct method of achieving the goal is impaired. Example: Describing a word is a compensatory word-finding strategy that can be used when a person cannot think of the exact word; using this strategy may result in the listener guessing the word, thereby compensating for the word finding deficit. A person must remember to use the strategy for it to work. Compensatory strategies used for cognition, language, speech, and swallowing and are frequently taught in speech therapy.
Comprehension – Understanding. Auditory comprehension is understanding through listening. Reading comprehension is understanding written words.
Conversation – The exchange of ideas through language. The end goal of speech therapy in many cases.
Cue – An auditory, visual, or tactile message that prompts a person to say or do something. Cues are given in speech therapy to help a person find a word, produce a sound, remember something, or use a compensatory strategy. Also referred to as a hint or prompt.
Cueing Hierarchy – A set of cues arranged in an order from most helpful to least helpful.
Dysphagia – Impaired swallowing. Dysphagia is common after a stroke, but also occurs from other neurological conditions or physical damage to the mouth, throat, or esophagus. Speech-language pathologists are experts in the diagnosis and treatment of oral and pharyngeal dysphagia. Exercises, modified diets, and strategies may be recommended after a clinical/bedside or instrumental assessment. Find out more by reading “What is Dysphagia?“.
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) – An approach to clinical practice that values research and evidence of efficacy above tradition when making treatment decisions. Evidence exists along a hierarchy of strength, from clinical expertise and case studies to randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses. Read “Is this app evidence-based?” for more information.
Executive Functioning – The term for the overall management of tasks, including planning, reasoning, monitoring, adjusting, problem solving, and evaluating. This is the highest level of cognitive functioning and often impaired in brain injury survivors.
Generalization – The process of a skill learned in therapy being used in a broader context. Also known as carry-over or transfer.
Hierarchy – An order of cues, tasks, or stimuli ranked according to difficulty or helpfulness.
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) – The set of symbols to represent all the sounds in the world’s languages.
Intonation – The rise and fall of pitch in the voice during speech. A component of prosody.
Language – A system for communicating. The words and rules for combining them understood by a community; can be spoken or written. English, Spanish, and American Sign Language are three examples of languages.
Memory – The cognitive process of storing (or encoding) and recalling (or retrieving) information in the brain. There are many types of memory: short-term, long-term, procedural, declarative, semantic, and episodic. Memory can be impaired through an acquired or degenerative brain condition, such as a TBI or dementia.
Phonation – Sound made when air vibrates the vocal folds in the larynx to produce speech. In some motor speech disorders, phonation is absent, impaired, or mis-timed.
Phonemes – The sounds that are distinct in a language. The word “cat” has 3 phonemes: k + æ + t. Phonemes can be written using the International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA.
Phonological Awareness – A set of skills that allow a person to hear and manipulate the sounds in words regardless of the meaning. Rhyming, alliteration, segmenting, and blending are all phonological awareness skills.
Pragmatics – The social use of language, including tone of voice, taking turns in a conversation, providing context to a story, and using words appropriate to the audience or situation. Pragmatic skills are often impaired after a brain injury or a stroke on the right side of the brain.
Prosody – The melody of speech, including suprasegmental features such as rate, rhythm, intonation, volume, stress, and pitch. Prosody can convey emotion, sarcasm, a question vs a statement, and energy. Damage to the brain can impair a person’s ability to produce or understand prosody. People with Broca’s aphasia or apraxia are often dysprosodic. Those with right-hemisphere damage may not understand the intent of the speaker if sarcasm is used, called sensory or receptive aprosodia.
Resonance – The flow of air through the nose or mouth during speech. The velum prevents air from going through the nose in all but the nasal sounds (m, n, ng) in normal speech. Cleft palate, stroke, and progressive diseases can cause disorders in resonance in speech.
Respiration – Breathing, and the first component of speech production.
Responsive Naming – Generating the name of an object or idea when given attributes about it. For example, “what do you use to tell time?” could be a question meant to elicit the names “clock” or “watch.”
Semantics -The meaning of language.
Speech – The expression of language through articulated sounds. Speech consists of respiration, phonation, articulation, resonance, and prosody. Disorders of speech may include problems with any of these areas, including fluency (stuttering or stammering) and voice.
Speech Therapy – The treatment of communication and swallowing disorders.
Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) – The official title given to professionals who are trained to evaluate and treat communication and swallowing disorders. The term ‘Speech-Language Pathologist’ is meant to better reflect the scope of practice of professionals commonly referred to as ‘speech therapists.’ In the US and Canada, entry-level education to qualify to be a SLP is a Master’s degree.
Strategy – A plan for achieving a goal. People with communication and swallowing disorders may benefit from using strategies to do the tasks that have become difficult for them.
Syntax – The rules for combining words in a language. Syntax is often impaired in non-fluent aphasia.
Velar – A class of sounds produced at the back of the mouth by approximating the base of the tongue to the velum, or soft palate. /k/, /g/, and /ng/ are velar consonant sounds in English.
Wh Question – A type of question that starts with one of these words that starts with “wh”: who, what, where, when, why, which, whose. “How” is also often considered a wh question.