Speech and Language Disorders
Speech and Language disorders can exist in isolation or together with other speech and language disorders. They can be associated with other conditions as hearing loss, traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, and some syndromes and can rannge in severity from mild to profound.
Speech therapy in our schools primarily focuses on four main areas of communication:
articulation; fluency; voice disorders and language
The following descriptions below have been provided by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
FLUENCY:
A fluency disorder (stuttering) is an interruption in the flow of speaking characterized by an abnormal rate of speaking, speech interruptions and repetitions of sounds, words, phrases, or sentences that interferes with effective communication.
ARTICULATION:
Articulation (sound) errors are characterized by the ommission, substitution, distortion, addition and/or incorrect sequencing of speech sounds. The errors may interfere with intelligibility or how clearly a student speaks.
VOICE:
A voice impairment is the inappropriate production and/or absence of vocal quality, pitch, loudness, or resonance typical for an individual's age and/or gender.
LANGUAGE:
Language includes listening, speaking, thinking, reading and writing. A student's ability to effectively use and understand oral and written language defines how that student is able to participate, access, and progress in the general curriculum.
Students use receptive language to understand vocabulary, interpret meaning and follow directions. These skills contribute to students' success in social and academic environments for listening and reading.
Students use expressive language to ask questions, to express thoughts, ideas, and needs, and to create meaning. These skills contribute to students' success in speaking and writing.
Students use pragmatic language skills to have functional and socially appropriate communication.
http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Pragmatics.htm