Speech Therapy Treatment Health Feed

Speech therapy helps in improving the speech, understanding the language skills, and also help in communicating in non-verbal ways such as listening and taking turns. Speech therapy treats various kinds of communication and swallowing problems.

Children with Cleft Palate are diagnosed with an opening in the upper tissue palate in the mouth. This condition causes Velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD) which results in excessive airflow from the nose while speaking. Although it can be corrected with surgery, the patient will still be affected by VPD.

Speech therapists help in this condition by assisting the patient with speech and language skills. The speech therapy for such a patient can be categorized as auditory feedback and articulation practice.

Auditory Feedback

Before involving the patient with any speech therapy, it is essential for the patient to understand the difference between normal voice and nasal voice output.

For this purpose, the child is instructed to use a tube to listen to the voice of the normal person. To understand the difference, one end of the tube is then held near the ear of the child and the other is held near his nasal and then he is instructed to make sounds so that he understands the nasal voice.

After this understanding, the different approaches to speech therapy starts.

Articulation Practice

This is usually where speech therapy begins. In this practice, the different type of condition is understood that relates to different speech organs. The understanding of different vowels, consonants and related sounds is taught to the child for making the speaking sound less nasal.

Some of the methods for achieving these sounds are:

• Pharyngeal Plosives: This sound is produced when the tongue is moving backward. The practice of making “ng” sound, and dropping the tongue and producing “k” sound.

• Pharyngeal fricatives: When the tongue retracts but is not able to make contact with the pharyngeal wall is when this sound is produced. The speech therapists make the child learn the techniques of making sounds of “t”, “ts”, “ch”, or  “sh”, and provide feedback for learning the proper positioning of the tongue.

• Nasal Plosives: This sound usually occurs when the tongue is positioned improperly and it obstructs the vocal tract. A speech therapist may make the child yawn so that the back of the tongue is pushed down, and feel as the mouth stretches.

• Palatal-Dorsal Productions: It occurs due to the malocclusion of the teeth. Practicing sounds like “t”, “d”, “n”, “k”, “g”, and “ng” often helps in such condition.

Take Away

Cleft Palate is generally developed due to improper growth while the child was in the womb. The difficulty of producing proper sounds when there is excessive airflow in the mouth can be overcome by training and practicing certain sounds, as instructed by a speech therapist.

Mumbling is one of the most common problems in toddlers. Most parents are attentive towards their children's communication skills. If the children start mumbling in more extended conversation and do not articulate well, such cases are of concern for the parents, as the child suffers from speech disability. He/she cannot perform well in school and various areas of social interaction. Many children are good in verbal competitions and studies but may lag behind because of mumbling.

What is Mumbling in Toddlers?

Mumbling is the sound made by the kids when they speak longer sentences. They may leave out a sound or slur the words which make the sentence meaningless. In order to speak clearly, the child needs to speak words correctly and in complete sentences. These kids might not have a problem with short sentences and simple words. But with a long sentence, they might slur and mumble.

How to Improve Speech Qualities in Toddlers?

Toddlers and preschoolers often lose interest in the treatment or therapies if they do not experience fun in them. This is where parents need a speech therapist who helps in improving mumbling with creative ideas. 

Here are a few tips for speech therapy by which parents can help their child improve mumbling problems.

• Take a Video of the Kid: Parents can record a video of the kid when he/she speaks or performs anything. Later they can show them to the kid and ask if he/she likes or need to improve it. Encourage him/her to speak well and improve by showing other kids' videos. Teach them to speak well and let them observe other kids' conversations. This way, you can keep track of the kids' problem with words and sound. One can also give cues to the kids in the sentences or places where he/she is making mistakes.

• Practice: Practice with the kid for improving his ability to speak correctly. One should help him/her to practice words and sentences daily. Use games or cards for practising. This will develop an interest in the child to learn and improve. Make flashcards or drawings of the sentences which need to be practiced by the child. This will be a fun way to practice effective speaking skills.

• Create Signal: One can create a signal for the child, which emphasizes that he started mumbling. This can be practised with the child when parents are teaching him/her speech therapy. Use the signal to tell him/her that he started mumbling.

• Consulting Speech Therapists: For serious and advanced cases, it is advisable to consult professional speech therapists. They will formulate a system that can be used to develop speech abilities in the kids. They are scientifically trained professionals who help in the process of effective speaking and communication. One can also monitor the work of the therapists and practice the lesson at home for better results.

Take Away

Mumbling is not a disorder. However, if the condition happens frequently and impacts your child’s development, it is advisable to practice them with speech therapy. For more critical cases, professional consultation is always advisable.

Communication disorders refer to a variety of disorders that may affect a person’s ability to detect, comprehend, or apply speech and language to effectively engage in discourse with others. Over 10% of children suffer from communication disorders. A problem in a particular area of communication can affect other areas. For example – hearing impairment in a child can disrupt his/her ability to adjust the tone or pitch of voice, leading to voice disorders. 

Types of Communication Disorders 

Communication disorders are classified into several types –

• Mixed expressive-receptive language disorder – If the child has difficulty speaking or understanding language, or shows signs of developmental delay
• Sound-speech disorder – If a child beyond a certain age faces a tough time expressing words clearly 
• Fluency disorder – This refers to developmental stuttering, which typically begins in early childhood – between 2 years and 5 years – and may continue throughout life
• Social communication disorder – If a child is having trouble with non-verbal and verbal communication
• Articulation disorders – This refers to difficulty producing sounds clearly or speaking in a manner that is incomprehensible by others

Signs Indicating Communication Disorders in Children 

Each child with a communication disorder may show unique symptoms. Nevertheless, the most common ones observed in a child are –

• Limited choice of word for his/her age
• Difficulty naming objects or grasping simple instructions/directions
• Not speaking at all

Most children with the above disorders are able to speak by the time they enrol in a school. However, they may still face problems communicating. Children of school-going age may have problems forming and understanding words, while teenagers often face trouble expressing or comprehending abstract ideas. 

Even though the symptoms may seem like an indication of some other health problem, be sure to take your child to a therapist for proper diagnosis.

How are Communication Disorders in children diagnosed?

In most cases, children with communication disorders are referred to as an SLP or a Speech-language pathologist. A complete evaluation involves –

• Psychological testing of one’s thinking abilities
• Psychometric testing to detect the child’s reaction to various situations, reasoning skills and thought process – this, however, does not test one’s GK

How to treat Communication Disorders in children?

Treatment for communication disorders in children may include one or more of the following types of approaches –

• Speech Therapy – to help kids learn new vocabulary, correct word or grammatical errors, and organize their beliefs and thoughts
• Behaviour Therapy – therapy aims to bring the desired behaviour into practice with selective reinforcement – for example, the child may be encouraged to use adaptive coping behaviour to help them remember facts relevant to school performance
• Environmental Modification – a child with any particular communication disorder can be given extra time during discussions or test situations to more adequately formulate responses

Speak with your therapist or counsellor about the needs of your child, as they can prepare a treatment plan to help your child cope with the difficulties they face with communication disorders. 

Every child is different so are their developmental pace. Some children may have difficulty in their growth that either led to slow or late development. Children may have a problem in their speech which makes it difficult for them to talk and communicate with others that can affect their personality and overall development. 

Oral Placement Therapy or OPT is a kind of speech therapy that uses a combination of visual stimulation, auditory stimulation, and tactile stimulation to help improve speech clarity and feeding skills. Oral Placement Therapy is utilized to improve and develop articulator awareness and stability, muscle memory, and placement including grading, dissociation, and direction of movement, that play a significant role in the development of speech clarity. 

Elements of Speech 

There are four significant elements of muscle movement which result in speech. The first element is awareness of the oral structures, which is the sensory element of movement. If the child is not able to feel the muscle position, feeding abilities and speech clarity will be compromised. A child may be tactile defensive or hypersensitive, hyposensitive to tactile input, or may have a fluctuating or mixed response to tactile inputs. These kinds of reactions can be seen in children diagnosed with conditions such as ADHD, autism, down syndromes, cerebral palsy, visual impairments, apraxia, and others. The Awareness of the oral structures helps in developing and improving speech clarity and feeding abilities. 

Another critical element of speech is the placement of the oral structures. OPT does not include traditional methods, instead, it adds the tactile stimuli to explain and teach oral placement structures. Particularly in children with dyspraxia or childhood apraxia of speech, tactile cues play a significant role in improving feeding skills and speech clarity. OPT employs various therapy tools such as bubbles, jaw grading bite blocks, grabbers, horns, straws, chewy tubes, and others. These tools are used in a structured and hierarchical manner to help children maximize all their sensory systems to improve their skill levels. 

Once the child becomes aware of his/her oral structures and has learned about the placement of jaws, tongue, and lips for particular sounds and feeding skills, OPT starts working on building a child’s endurance, stability, and muscle memory. It means that movements are taught to the muscles via increased repetitions to make the movements become automatic and so that they are not lost. The number of repetitions is based upon endurance, muscle memory, stability, and adequate strength requirements and should be followed closely by the therapist.

The last element of speech is the production of speech sounds or talking, which is not as easy as it seems. Speech production is a result of a lot of brain processes. One needs to be aware of his/her oral structures, placement of his/her oral structures, possess required stability, muscle memory, strength, and endurance to be able to produce speech sounds or movements required for appropriate feeding skills. One should have a strong, graded, and stable jaw to develop the foundation for good speech production skills.

Takeaway

Oral Placement Therapy is used to help children and individuals to have speech clarity and feeding skills. This therapy works in a structured and hierarchical manner including four critical elements of the Speech. Parents and guardians should understand the need of their child if he/she has difficulty in speaking and feeding skills and should consult a therapist to help their child develop these skills.

Some children have more difficulty building vocabulary and articulating sounds as compared to others. In such cases, a speech therapist can help. A speech therapist will help your child learn to enunciate properly, build their vocabulary and help them communicate better. Many speech problems such as stuttering begin in early childhood and if left untreated, can continue into the child’s adult life as well. Working with a speech therapist can help prevent this. Some of the benefits of consulting a speech therapist include:

1. Clearer speech: Each sound of the English alphabet is unique. While it is common for children to mispronounce words with complex syllables like bath or shower, a speech therapist is needed when the child cannot pronounce vowels correctly. A speech therapist will then be able to help the child pronounce sounds clearly and speak in a way so that he or she can be understood by others.
2. Reduced dependency on gestures: When a child is not confident speaking or does not know the word for what he wants, he will resort to gestures such as pointing. When you try to teach your child the associated word, he or she may not be receptive to it and may continue to use gestures or use another word for it. In such cases, speech therapists can help build a child’s vocabulary through different exercises. They will also help the child frame sentences so that he does not have to rely on gestures.
3. Improved listening skills: By expanding a child’s vocabulary, a speech therapist can help the child understand simple questions and directions. This allows the child to understand what others are saying to him and be understood by them. Thus, they can help your child become more social and better listeners.
4. Greater independence: For a child to start going o school, he or she needs to have achieved a certain degree of independence. Speech therapists help them achieve that independence by helping them improve their communication skills. When a child learns to speak on his own and can understand what people are saying, he or she will not have to rely on the parents to interpret their gestures and words.
5. Better expression: As a child’s vocabulary grows, so does his ability to express himself. This helps them talk about their feelings, thoughts etc. Thus, a speech therapist can help a shy child become more social by helping him or her speak more clearly.

Speech disorders refer to the conditions that affect an individual’s ability to form sounds that allow them to communicate with others. They are not the same as language disorders. Speech disorders stop people from producing correct speech sounds. A language disorder, on the other hand, affects one’s ability to comprehend language and learn words. Nevertheless, both disorders make it difficult for a person to express feelings and thoughts in front of others.

Types of Speech Disorders

Speech disorders can affect anyone, at any age. Some common types of speech disorders are the following –

• Stuttering – This type of speech problem interrupts your normal speech flow. Frustration, excitement, or stress can cause stuttering to become more serious.

• Apraxia – This refers to brain damage resulting in impediment of an individual’s motor skills. Speech Apraxia specifically refers to the damage of motor skills affecting a person’s ability to create speech sounds correctly, even if they are aware of the right words.

• Dysarthria – This occurs when brain damage causes the face muscles – lips, tongue, or throat – to weaken. Muscle weakness in certain body parts can make it difficult for a person to speak correctly.

Symptoms of Speech Disorders

If you have a speech disorder, you are likely to experience symptoms such as –

• Prolonging or repeating sounds

• Distorting sounds

• Adding syllables or sounds to words

• Rearranging syllables

• Difficulty in pronouncing 

Psychological Rehabilitation for Speech Problems

Psychological rehabilitation includes certain programs like speech therapy and physical exercises that help the disabled person cope with the physical as well as emotional aspects of the impairment. 

The rehabilitation program provides support to the patient when performing routine activities, which might be challenging to cope with otherwise when you have a certain speech disorder. A team of professionals offer assistance with behaviours, emotions, and developing coping skills. 

When a child has difficulty forming sounds it may affect their development and other aspects of their lives. For example, a child with an articulation error may have difficulty completing schoolwork or interacting socially with their peers. This is where articulation therapy comes into play. The goal of articulation therapy is to help a child produce challenging sounds and achieve age-appropriate speech.

Proper articulation helps children

Let's start with a definition of articulation. Articulation is the process of physically producing a sound, syllable, or word. This is accomplished by using the lips, tongue, teeth, jaw, and palate to control the flow of air. Articulation errors come in four varieties: substitution, omission, distortion and addition; the acronym soda may help you remember them.

Substitution occurs when one sound is replaced with another, such as sorry/sowwy. In very young children, this isn't always a cause for concern. Omission is the removal of a difficult sound when forming a word. Think of dick van dyke's atrocious cockney accent from the movie, chitty chitty bang bang'ello guvnah! distortion errors occur when a child can't produce the correct sound; for example, children with a frontal lisp may have difficulty with the /s/ sound. An addition error involves the use of an incorrect sound or syllable, such as ending all words with an /s/ sound.

A key point in understanding articulation errors is their relationship to physiological, rather than psychological, issues. A child who has a rhotacism, or the inability to pronounce the letter /r/, understands how to pronounce the letter and sound, but has a physical impairment that prevents him or her from producing them correctly.

Autism is a developmental disorder that is usually diagnosed within the first three years of a child’s life. Speech disorders and an inability to communicate with others are characteristic symptoms of autism. Speech therapy can be very beneficial for such children. Thus, it is often a major part of a treatment plan for autism. Some of the benefits of speech therapy for autistic children include:

1. Better articulation: Autistic children often find it hard to make certain sounds. Hence, they tend to babble or make harsh sounds or grunt instead of talking. A speech therapist can help the child learn to articulate sounds in a better way. For this, the therapist will help the child exercise the facial muscles and lips. This can make it easier for them to be understood by others.
2. Treating echolalia: Echolalia refers to a child’s behaviour where he or she answers a question by repeating part of it. This may be because they find it difficult to express their own thoughts and feelings. Echolalia is very common amongst autistic children. Speech therapy is the only way to treat this condition. If left untreated, it could make the child withdraw into himself.
3. Better vocabulary: Autistic children often memorize words without understanding them. A speech therapist can help the child put words into context and thus help reduce their dependence on gestures. This can also make autistic children more confident. In addition to expanding their vocabulary, a therapist can also teach children the proper time and place for communication. For example, when to say good morning and good evening.
4. Initiate communication: When children are not confident in expressing themselves, they wait to be called on before saying anything. By helping them articulate sounds better and expanding their vocabulary, a speech therapist can help children gain the confidence needed to initiate conversations. With therapy, autistic children can also follow simple instructions and begin to answer questions independently. This will make them more independent.

Speech therapy does not follow the same techniques for all children. For therapy to be effective, the therapist must work in close collaboration with the child’s parents and caregivers to set the right goals and monitor the child’s progress. Some of the techniques that may be used include the use of electronic talkers, typing or signing, picture boards, facial exercise and massages, using rhyme to help construct sentences and using sounds to help the child expand speech sounds. If the child is non-verbal, the therapist may also introduce alternatives to verbal communication.

As a parent, you feel a special deep panic when you realize that your child—your beautiful, clever, funny child, who regularly surprises you with precocious bons mots, who built an ingenious bow out of tubing and rubber bands that can shoot a chopstick across the living room with remarkable accuracy—is having trouble learning to read.

Meanwhile, all the other kids appear to be breezing along, polishing off Harry Potter books while your child stumbles over the difference between "how" and "now." You don't want to be one of those hysterical parents who gets all crazy about every little developmental bump in the road, but, hey, your kid can't really read yet, and the others can. In your darker moments, you feel the desolate urge to ratchet down your ambitions for your child from valedictorian to graduating at all.

Such fears may be exaggerated, but they're not irrational. Reading ability does predict school achievement and success (which is, of course, related to income, health, and other factors), and reading gains ever greater importance beyond school, as more jobs are now based on information and technology. Failure to read places significant limits on how one fares in other parts of life. And a lot of people never do learn to read well: Approximately 40 percent of fourth grade children in the United States lack basic reading skills; 20 percent of all graduating high school seniors are classified as functionally illiterate (meaning that their reading and writing skills are insufficient for ordinary practical needs) ; and about 42 million adults in the United States cannot read. So, you're not nuts to take a reading problem seriously.

Now for some perspective. First, let's take a moment to recognize that compared with the development of oral language, the acquisition of reading is unnatural. Speech and the ability to understand speech can be considered the result of a natural process in the sense that the requisite skills emerge without formal training. Several species of animal employ sounds such as clicking, whistles, song, or foot-tapping in a fashion that constitutes focused and targeted communication (and dolphins actually seem to have names for one another). Before children can speak fluently, they move from sounds to words, words to phrases, and so on, acquiring their growing expertise from exposure to the speech around them. They then make efforts to speak, with little formal guidance. By contrast, children must be taught to read.

The good news for kids who have trouble reading is that while a deficiency in reading may look like an across-the-board failure, it is often a local problem in just one or two of the components that add up to the ability to read. Reading, like golfing or playing the guitar, is not one big global skill but a constellation of many smaller ones. When we read fluently, the little skills weave together so seamlessly that they look like single expertise.

It's important to look at the components because a holdup in the development of any single one may be at fault in a child's poor performance in reading. If we can identify the component that's not doing its share, we can do a great deal to improve reading. The components that makeup reading are interrelated and overlapping, but distinguishable:

1. Vocabulary: knowing the meanings of words. A child's comprehension of what is read depends on this. Better vocabulary better prepares a child for reading.
2. Comprehension: understanding and being able to interpret what is read, connecting the printed words and sentences with human experience.
3. Phonological awareness: identifying and manipulating units of oral languages, such as words, syllables, onsets, and rimes. Children who have phonological awareness can recognize that sentences are made up of words, words can be broken down into sounds and syllables, sounds can be deleted from words to make new words, and different words can begin or end with the same sound or have the same middle sound(s).
4. Decoding: breaking down words into their constituent sounds and building words from those sounds. This begins with blending sounds ("puh" plus "al" equals "pal") and extends into sounding out words the child has never seen before by recognizing the sounds of letters and syllables that form them.
5. Fluency: reading smoothly with accuracy, speed, and expression that conveys the sense of what's being read.

As a parent with no particular professional expertise in teaching literacy, there's a lot you can do on the level of normal play and routine home life to promote reading—and without turning it into a chore or a high-pressure struggle.

Parents can begin working on the components of reading when their child is still an infant and extend the process throughout childhood. To begin with, the more the child knows about oral language, the better. When she begins to read, she will draw upon a reserve of expertise that she first built up as a speaker and listener: vocabulary, comprehension, phonological awareness, connecting words to things.

With infants, talk to the child and encourage him to make a range of talk like sounds. Begin reading to the child, and keep books around, including some within the child's reach. Do what you can to make reading fun, enjoyable, peaceful, and engaging, setting the stage for what comes next at the toddler level. You are building command of sounds, love of reading, and an appreciation of the value and importance of books.

With toddlers and pre-schoolers, it helps to connect reading to some routine such as bedtime, nap time, or a pre or after meal lull. Select topics she likes; let the child select books for you to read. Get in the habit of activities or games that rhyme and otherwise play with sounds: songs, jingles, made-up phrases (e.g., "Billy is silly" to catch the rhyming sounds, "Sally sounds silly" to catch the sound of the initial S). Nursery rhymes are especially rich in words, rhyming, and other fundamentals. Talk about a greater range of subjects, even very mundane ones—like pointing to the parts of a car or animal in an illustration and labeling them. As you read, stop and ask a gentle question: "What do you think Babar is thinking here?" or "What do you think will happen next?" These are great for comprehension. If the question is too difficult, offer a little more guidance by attaching a statement: "I'll bet Babar is a little lonely. What do you think would make him feel better?" Also, you can encourage your child to experiment with writing, which helps reading because she uses sounds to try to write the word. You might see the child write "sn" for "sun," a great start that shows awareness of sounds and the breakdown of words into sounds.

As your child continues in elementary school and begins to work hard during the school day on reading, it's a good idea to continue reading with and to him, mixing in casual writing practice (some kids will go for the idea of alternating entries in a journal with a parent) and talking over dinner and in other family settings about what the child has read.

If there's a series of books that speaks to one of your child's enthusiasms, helping him get into that series will allow him to become familiar with continuing characters and engage with a larger story, which makes even new books seem familiar.

Keep a dictionary around and easily accessible, and use it once in a while, inviting your child to do this with you. The dictionary not only reinforces vocabulary and comprehension, it helps your child decode words by showing that they are composed of syllables that can be sounded out.

Makeup word games to play while driving or in a store. "Think of words that sound like snow" is good for a first or second grader, but you can work up to more complicated games for older children. If you make the play competitive (if your family is into that), please resist the temptation to rattle off 50 words in a row and then do your special taunting wiggly victory dance.

And, of course, continue to show by your actions and not just your pronouncements that reading is engaging, relevant, and a path to fresh experiences. Keep books around where your child can pick them up in the natural course of things. And don't forget to pick up a book yourself. Model the desired intimacy with books; doesn't just preach it.

You can't add becoming a full-time reading tutor to the already fulltime demands of parenting, and children will vary in interest, ability, and attention, so you'll inevitably have to select just a few of the many possible activities to promote reading skills. In general, go for regularity—a little almost every day, as part of a routine that links reading to the more relaxed moments in the day—rather than a Shakespeare marathon one Saturday a month. And when setting priorities, bear in mind that two activities are clearly the most critical:

1. Read aloud to the child. It shows that reading is important, part of everyday life, and fun, and allows you to model the basic component skills. It's fine to read the same books over and over, as many children like to do. Research indicates that repeated readings help a child to integrate words better; comprehend meaning; and connect sounds, words, and meaning. Even on the 50th time through the same story, interact during the reading to bring the child into the activity. "What is Pooh doing? What do you think is in the jar?"
2. Help the child understand that letters are related to sounds and that words can break down into sounds. Ultimately, the child's reading will advance by being able to sound out words, not by memorizing individual words. There are alphabet books to help you work with your child to connect letters to sounds. In the middle of reading, stop and sound out a word. "Let's sound this out together: Err ... un. Run! He's getting ready to run."

Reading may be important and complex and very scary when your child has trouble with it, but parents should take heart in remembering that mundane low-pressure practice during games and other activities with you can make an enormous difference. Even a slightly increased sensitivity to breaking down sounds or rhyming, even a slightly heightened familiarity with books and motivation to engage with them, can provide a significant boost at school. Reading preparation is at the top of the list of factors that make a difference in school achievement. Such preparation need not - and should not - feature threats, severity, and drudgery. Instead, help your child to read by doing what you do anyway - playing with him, talking with her - in a slightly more purposeful manner.