Speech Disorders

It can be frustrating for both you and your child when their speech/communication skills are developing slowly or they seem like they are not developing at all. When a child is having trouble communicating, it can have a serious effect on how well they interact with the world around them and their overall quality of life. Parents or carers can sometimes feel confused over whether they are right to be concerned about their child’s speech, language and communication development. If you are unsure whether your child’s speech and language is development is within the average range, you can click here http://www.talkingpoint.org.uk/progress-checker for a simple guide to monitoring a child’s language and speech development. This should help you to reach a decision on whether or not to seek support for your child.

A speech delay and speech disorder are actually quite different. A speech delay is the term used for a child whose speech is developing normally, but they are taking longer than they should to reach key points in their speech development. They will normally sound like a younger child than you would expect at their age and they will often start to fall behind children their age in their education.

A speech disorder, however, describes speech development that does not follow the usual pattern or sequence of speech development at all. There are a number of disorders that can have this effect, such as speech dyspraxia (sometimes called oromotor dyspraxia, verbal dyspraxia or childhood apraxia of speech). Children with a speech disorder will often sound unusual and will have real difficulties forming words and sentences to talk to others.

If your child’s speech development seems very slow or unusual for their age, it is possible that they may have verbal dyspraxia, also known as speech dyspraxia or oromotor dyspraxia. This affects the way a child coordinates their muscles to produce the correct sounds, movements and words with their mouths. Some common signs of oromotor dyspraxia include:

• The child’s spoken language is unintelligible even to familiar listeners when the topic of conversation is known to them
• The child has trouble producing a range of sounds, or may produce only a very limited range of consonants
• The vowels are not produced accurately
• The child pronounces words and sounds very inconsistently
• The child places emphasis on the incorrect syllables within words when they speak
• The child struggles to produce words with more than 2 syllables
• The child may be able to produce a sound in isolation, but is unable to use the same sound within a word

Identifying whether a child has verbal dyspraxia as early as possible is important. Early intervention gives children the best chance possible of getting their speech development back on track. Parents or carers who suspect their child may have speech problems caused by dyspraxia are encouraged to seek the advice of a qualified Speech and Language Therapist (SLT).

It can be frustrating for both you and your child when their speech/communication skills are developing slowly or they seem like they are not developing at all. When a child is having trouble communicating, it can have a serious effect on how well they interact with the world around them and their overall quality of life. Parents or carers can sometimes feel confused over whether they are right to be concerned about their child’s speech, language and communication development. If you are unsure whether your child’s speech and language is development is within the average range, you can click here http://www.talkingpoint.org.uk/progress-checker for a simple guide to monitoring a child’s language and speech development. This should help you to reach a decision on whether or not to seek support for your child.

A speech delay and speech disorder are actually quite different. A speech delay is the term used for a child whose speech is developing normally, but they are taking longer than they should to reach key points in their speech development. They will normally sound like a younger child than you would expect at their age and they will often start to fall behind children their age in their education.

A speech disorder, however, describes speech development that does not follow the usual pattern or sequence of speech development at all. There are a number of disorders that can have this effect, such as speech dyspraxia (sometimes called oromotor dyspraxia, verbal dyspraxia or childhood apraxia of speech). Children with a speech disorder will often sound unusual and will have real difficulties forming words and sentences to talk to others.

If your child’s speech development seems very slow or unusual for their age, it is possible that they may have verbal dyspraxia, also known as speech dyspraxia or oromotor dyspraxia. This affects the way a child coordinates their muscles to produce the correct sounds, movements and words with their mouths. Some common signs of oromotor dyspraxia include:

• The child’s spoken language is unintelligible even to familiar listeners when the topic of conversation is known to them
• The child has trouble producing a range of sounds, or may produce only a very limited range of consonants
• The vowels are not produced accurately
• The child pronounces words and sounds very inconsistently
• The child places emphasis on the incorrect syllables within words when they speak
• The child struggles to produce words with more than 2 syllables
• The child may be able to produce a sound in isolation, but is unable to use the same sound within a word

Identifying whether a child has verbal dyspraxia as early as possible is important. Early intervention gives children the best chance possible of getting their speech development back on track. Parents or carers who suspect their child may have speech problems caused by dyspraxia are encouraged to seek the advice of a qualified Speech and Language Therapist (SLT).

The Speech and Language Therapists working with children with Speech Disorders have received training and also have extensive experience of using a range of specialist approaches including:

1. The Cycles Approach (Hodson, 2006) which involves an initial assessment to identify all of the sounds the child is unable to produce followed by a cycle of therapy where each sound is worked on in isolation, at a word level or within short sentences for one week, with the Therapist identifying a listening list for the parents and/or teaching staff to read to the child 2 – 3 times a day and 4 – 6 words which the child practises producing at least twice every day.
2. The Nuffield Dyspraxia Program, (Williams and Stephens, 2010) which is used to support children who have oro-motor dyspraxia