Speech disorder in children

PIDE CITA

How speech disorder affects children

The child's language skills are a frequent reason for consultation, because if a child does not reach some developmental skills at the expected time, it is normal for parents to start worrying.

What is a speech disorder?

A speech disorder is the inability to create or form the speech sounds needed to properly develop oral language and communicate with others. This can make the child’s speech difficult to understand.

Causes of speech disorder in children

There can be several consequences of a speech disorder in children, so we will always ask for an evaluation by an otolaryngologist to rule out organic problems such as impaired hearing.

Other possible causes could be that children may have trouble producing speech sounds correctly. They may hesitate or stutter when speaking, have trouble understanding what others are saying, or have difficulty communicating their thoughts.

Types of speech disorders in children

There are different types of speech-related disorders:

  • Dysphasia: Difficulty understanding and expressing language.
  • Phonological disorder or dyslalia: Errors in the articulation of words, the most frequent being the substitution, distortion, omission or insertion of sounds.
  • Dysphemia: Stuttering or fluency disorder of childhood onset.
  • Dysarthria: Difficulty articulating words due to a neurological problem that causes the mouth and speech muscles not to make the proper muscle tone.
  • Social communication disorder: Problems understanding a conversation, as well as understanding the metaphorical meaning of what is said to them or respecting turns of speech.
  • Dysglossia: Disorder that causes severe difficulty in the articulation of sounds due to the presence of alterations in the buccophonatory organs themselves.
  • Tachyphemia or mumbling: characterized by exaggeratedly rapid speech, losing words along the way and making mistakes.

How do we treat speech disorders in children at Logopeda Barcelona?

Whether due to dyslalia or a phonetic-phonological problem, it is always advisable to see a speech therapist at an early age for an assessment and possible intervention, because if not intervened in time, the speech problem can interfere in the learning of reading and writing.

Then, from Logopeda Barcelona, after a previous diagnosis to find out what speech disorders he/she has, will carry out a personalized therapy with the aim of stimulating the language in your child. All this through a series of activities:

  • Language intervention activities.
  • Articulation therapy.
  • Oral and motor feeding therapy.