Speech disorders include articulation disorders, phonological disorders, apraxia of speech, fluency disorders, and voice disorders. Speech disorders make it difficult to be understood by others and can potentially impact academic skills, like reading and spelling.

An articulation disorder occurs when a student has difficulty producing, or articulating, certain speech sounds past a developmentally appropriate age, such as incorrectly saying the /l/ sound. 

Phonological disorders occur when students have patterns of errors on groups of sounds, such as leaving off the final sound in a word ("ca" for "cat") or replacing sounds you make in the back of the mouth with sounds you make in the front ("tup" for "cup"). 

Apraxia of speech is when the brain has difficulty planning and coordinating all the movements required for speech production. With apraxia, longer words, phrases and sentences are often more difficult to understand than shorter ones. Students may demonstrate effortful movement to make sounds, and have inconsistent speech sound errors. 

Fluency, or stuttering, disorders also are classified as a speech disorder, and occur when students have repetitions, prolongations, and/or blocks in their speech that disrupt its natural flow. 

There are lots of ways to work on speech at home! Here is a list of different activities you can do with your child to work on using good speech:

Click the sounds below that your child is working on to access videos and practice words and games. If you aren't sure what specific sounds or goals to work on, reach out to the SLP serving your child!