Speech-Language Therapists (SLTs), speech pathologist, speech teacher; known by many names, people refer to these specialists most often as speech therapists. They work with children with a variety of delays and disorders spanning from mild articulation delays to more complex disorders, such as autism, down syndrome, hearing impairment, motor speech disorders, and other developmental delays.
SLTs, as they are called for short, are the specialists that help your child with speech, talking, and communication. However, you may be surprised at how broad this field of Speech-Language Therapy really is and just how many skill areas SLTs are trained to build and expand in young children.
An SLT can help your child with the following mentioned:
Articulation Skills/Speech Intelligibility
Articulation is the physical ability to move the tongue, lips, jaw, and palate (known as the articulators) to produce individual speech sounds which we call phonemes. For example, to articulate the ‘b’ sound, we need to inhale, then, while exhaling, we need to turn our voice on, bring our slightly tensed lips together to stop, and build up the airflow, and then release the airflow by parting our lips.
Intelligibility refers to how well people can understand your child’s speech. If a child’s articulation skills are compromised for any reason, his intelligibility will be decreased in compared to other children of his age. SLTs can work with your child to teach them how to produce the specific speech sounds or sound patterns that he is having difficulty with, and thus increasing his overall speech intelligibility.
Expressive Language Skills
While speech involves the physical motor ability to talk, language is a symbolic, rule-governed system used to convey a message. In English, the symbols can be words, either spoken or written. We also have gestural symbols, such as shrugging our shoulders to indicate “I don’t know” or waving to indicate “bye bye”, or the raising of our eye brows to indicate that we are surprised by something.
Expressive language refers to what your child says. Speech-Language Therapists can help your child learn new words and how to put them together to form phrases and sentences (semantics and syntax) so that your child can communicate effectively.
Receptive Language/Listening Skills
Receptive language refers to your child’s ability to listen and understand language. Most often, young children have stronger receptive language skills (what they understand) than expressive language skills (what they can say). An SLT can help teach your child new vocabulary and how to use that knowledge to follow directions, answer questions, and participate in simple conversations with others.
Speech Fluency/Stuttering
Stuttering is a communication disorder that affects speech fluency. It is characterized by breaks in the flow of speech referred to as disfluencies and typically begins in childhood. Everyone experiences disfluencies in their speech. Some disfluencies are totally normal, but having too many can actually significantly affect one’s ability to communicate.
In stuttering, we most often see the following types of primary behaviors: repetitions, prolongations, interjections, and blocks. We may also see secondary behaviors, typically in more severe cases of stuttering, such as tension in the neck, shoulders, face, jaw, chest, eye blinks, nose flaring, other odd facial movements, clenched fists, stomping of feet, jerking, or other unusual motor movements in arms, hands, legs, and feet.
SLTs help your child know strategies on how to control this behavior and thus increasing his speech fluency and intelligibility.
Voice and Resonance
Voice disorders refer to disorders that effect the vocal folds that allow us to have a voice. These can include vocal cord paralysis, nodules or polyps on the vocal folds, and other disorders that can cause hoarseness or aphonia (loss of voice).
Resonance refers to “the quality of the voice that is determined by the balance of sound vibration in the oral, nasal, and pharyngeal cavities during speech. Abnormal resonance can occur if there is obstruction in one of the cavities, causing hyponasality or cul-de-sac resonance, or if there is velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD), causing hypernasality and/or nasal emission.”
A common voice disorder in young children is hoarseness caused by vocal abuse. Vocal abuse refers to bad habits that lead to strain or damage of the vocal folds such as yelling, excessive talking, coughing, throat clearing, etc. SLTs, with experience in voice and resonance disorders, can work with children to decrease these behaviors and repair the strain/damage of the folds.
Social/Pragmatic Language
Social/pragmatic language refers to the way an individual uses language to communicate, which involves three major communication skills: using language to communicate in different ways (like greeting others, requesting, protesting, asking questions to gain information, etc.); changing language according to the people or place it is being used (i.e., we speak differently to a child than we do to an adult; we speak differently inside vs. outside); and following the rules for conversation (taking turns in conversation, staying on topic, using and understanding verbal and nonverbal cues, etc.).
SLTs can work with your child to teach them these social language skills so that they can more actively participate in conversations with others.
Cognitive–Communication Skills
Cognitive–communication disorders refer to the impairment of cognitive processes, including attention, memory, abstract reasoning, awareness, and executive functions (self-monitoring, planning and problem solving). These can be developmental in nature (meaning the child is born with these deficits) or can be acquired due to a head injury, stroke, or degenerative diseases. SLTs work with your child to help build these skills and/or teach them compensatory methods to assist them with their deficits.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
Augmentative and alternative communication, also known as AAC, refers to “all forms of communication (other than oral speech) that are used to express thoughts, needs, wants, and ideas. We all use AAC when we make facial expressions or gestures, use symbols or pictures, or write”. When SLTs are working with children, our number one goal is communication. Sometimes, a child may have such a severe delay/disorder that traditional oral speech is not possible or is not practical. In these circumstances, an SLT can be a great help to work with a child and his family to come up with an AAC system to use instead of, or alongside of, speech.
It is very important to note that these AAC methods are not always used to replace speech. In many circumstances, AAC is used as a bridge to speech. Children can use the AAC methods to communicate while still working on developing speech skills (when appropriate).
Swallowing/Feeding Issues
SLTs, believe it or not, can be trained in pediatric swallowing and feeding issues in addition to speech and language issues. This is because, as SLTs, they have intimate knowledge of the structures and functions of the oral cavities and beyond. In fact, some SLTs have training in myofunctional disorders, including tongue thrust.
Educating and Empowering You on How to Best Help Your Child
Hands down, the best thing an SLT can do for your child is to educate you and empower you on how to best help your child. An SLT may spend an hour or so a week with your child, but you spend hours and hours a week interacting with your child. You wake your child, get him ready for his day, read to him, talk to him, bathe him, and put him down to sleep at night. It is during these everyday routines that your child is learning the most and is given the most opportunities to communicate.
When you are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and confidence, you can be the best “speech therapist” your child will ever have. So ask questions, take notes, do the homework, and work closely with your child’s SLT. Together you can make an amazing team and change your child’s life, one word at a time.
