Speech or Language Impairment

Definitions

My Own Words:

An impairment in one's communication skills that negatively affects their academic performance. The impairment can be seen, or rather heard, in a variety of way, such as stuttering or lisps.

NYSED, Part 200 Regulations:

"A communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a student's educational performance."

Notes

The Inclusive Classroom:

• General Information:

  • 17.9% of students under IDEA

  • Involves speech and/or language:

    • Speech is the system of forming and producing sounds

    • language is considered the system of communicating ideas

  • Commonly pulled for speech therapy individually orin smal groups

    • Spends the majority of the day in a gen ed classroom

  • No known cause of speech or language impairments

  • Voice disorders are caused by trauma to the larynx, tonsils, sinuses, or cleft palate

  • Parents usually first identify a possible impairment

  • Primary school teachers are commonly the first to refer students for evaluations

• Characteristics of Speech or Language Impairments:

  • Speech disorders

    • Exists as voice, articulation, or fluency disorders

      • Voice affects pitch, volume, flexibility, and quality of voice

        • Chronically strained, hoarse, breathy, nasally

      • Articulation is difficulty pronouncing words

        • Omission (libary)

        • Addition (terribubble)

        • Distorting (lisping)

        • Substirution (tram for clam)

      • Fluency interrupts the natural flow or rhythm of speech

        • Stuttering

          • Repetition, prolongation, or blockage of sound, syllables, or words

  • Language disorders

    • Problems in using or comprehending language either expressive or receptive

      • Expressive is the use of language

      • Receptive is underatanding the language of others

    • Can involve difficulties with phonology, morphology, syntax, or pragmatics

      • Phonology id the ability to blend and segment sounds that letters or groups of letters make

      • Morphology is the meaningful structure of words

      • Syntax is the grammatical structure of language

        • Concerns word order, noun-verb agreement

      • Pragmatics is the use of language in social situations

    • Common example is aphasia

      • Often accompanies brain injuries

• Adaptations for Students with Speech or Language Impairments:

  • Adapt the physical environment:

    • Seat in front of room for easy listneing

    • Easier access for help

    • Possible special cueing system for oral responses

  • Adapt materials:

    • Use of alternative and augmentative communication (AAC)

      • Can be aided or unaided

        • Aided means it involves the use of an external device

        • Unaided menas it does not involve the use of an external device

      • Communication boards

        • Contain common picture or words to ask and answer questions

  • Adapt instructional procedures:

    • Clean, well-organized presentations

    • Appropriate pace of instruction

    • Maximize student engagement

    • Frequent questioning and feedback

    • Facilitate verbal feedback:

      • Allow time for students to respond

      • Repeat the response to the class

      • Do not finish their sentences for them

    • Allow extra practice for oral presentations

  • Adapt assessment methods:

    • Extended time

    • Assistance of readers, scribes, communication boards, and communication partners

Special Education in Contemporary Society:

• General Information:

  • Communiation is the exchange of ideas, information, thoughts, and feelings

    • Does NOT require speech or language

The Theory of Everything:

• Other Communication Devices:

  • Letter board

    • Board with letters divided into sections and colored

    • Blink for the correct color of section, then letter

  • Adaptive keyboard and text to speech technology

    • Single handed keyboard like system typed for Stephen Hawking

    • Text to speech technology would read the text

Class:

• Speech pathologists need to be patient

Experiences

Field Work:

• Middlesex Valley Primary School (Marcis Whitman)

  • I have multiple students who have been classified as having a speech impairment and are recieving speech therapy. They are all recieving it for different reasons; a stutter, a lisp (which I suspect is from a cleft palate), social ques and interaction.

Personal:

• N/A

Lingering Questions

• If a point is reached where speech therapy is not helping, what else can be done?

• Is it common for SLP to push into a classroom with multiple IEP for speech?

  • The one at Marcus-Whitman has pushed in a few times and we have 3 students who visit her, so I'm curious to see if it is just her seeing them in their classroom or a common occurance.

Additional Resources:

• Living With Articulation Disorder