What is speech and language?

WHAT IS SPEECH?

Speech is:

1- ARTICULATION of sounds

2 - The use of our VOICE (air passing through our vocal folds) to make noise that gets shaped by our mouths and nasal passages into sounds

3 - FLUENCY, which is the rhythm and flow of our speech

What is LANGUAGE?

Language is:

1 - the words and the way we put them together to use a language system to communicate our thoughts in our minds

2 - how we connect with other humans - communication is a basic human need

3 - a two-way street: there is RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE (being the "receiver" of a message) and EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE (being the "sender" of a message)

4 - communicated verbally, nonverbally through the hands, gestures, and facial expressions, or in writing

What does HEARING have to do with SPEECH and LANGUAGE?

Hearing is instrumental in learning language and developing speech.  From the time a baby is in the womb, they are able to hear their mother's voice and the voice of others out in the world.  

Hearing can be impacted by common ailments in children, such as congestion in the middle ear, sometimes leading to ear infections.  Repeated or prolonged decreases in hearing can impact speech development in children 0 - 8 years of age.  Decreased hearing can impact a child's ability to "catch" all the information being said around them; the loss of "incidental learning" can impact their learning of vocabulary, language, and speech.

If you are concerned about your child's hearing, you may choose to contact an audiologist privately as a family.  If you choose to do this privately as a family, the following website will help you located a licensed, certified audiologist: 

https://www.asha.org/profind/

The above image is of an AUDIOGRAM.  

This is the graph an audiologist uses to to plot the results of a hearing test.  On the left side (the Y axis)  is the LOUDNESS LEVEL, measured in dB, and along the top (the X axis) is the PITCH of sounds, measured in Hz.  The normal range of hearing for humans is between 250Hz (low pitch) to 8000Hz (high pitch), and the normal loudness level is 0dB.

The degree of hearing loss is listed along the right side of the graph, and the pictures show where those sounds would normally occur.  Quiet sounds, such as a ticking clock or bird chirping, occur at a lower loudness level, while loud sounds, such as a chain saw or motorcycle engine, occur at a higher loudness level.

During an audiology test, the audiologist sends a "beep" at a certain frequency through earphones to the person being tested at different loudness levels; after several attempts, they place an "X" for the left ear or an "O" for the right ear the lowest loudness level the person was able to hear the frequency tested.  Depending on where the results fall, it may indicate a hearing loss.

AUDITORY PROCESSING:

Auditory processing involves both the ability to hear as well as the brain's ability to take in that auditory information to use it.  Follow this link to a comprehensive explanation of auditory processing disorders in children:

https://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Understanding-Auditory-Processing-Disorders-in-Children/