Childhood and communication issues

Published: 22 Mar 2019 Tagged: apraxiaarticulation disorderschildrenclutteringdyspraxiaearly interventionlispingparentspre-schoolersprimary schoolerssignsSLPSpeakablespeech language pathologistSpeech Pathologyspeech therapystuttering

The transition stage from pre-schoolers to primary schoolers demands from both parents and children much conversation, understanding and support, since physical and social changes become so much apparent to the kids. The more the connection and shared confidence among the family members, the smoother the transition will be. However, unexpected changes with the infant and the social pressure may cause somatic effects. Among those effects, there are the speech and language pathologies. Sometimes they can be easily treated (especially when the intervention is undertaken the earliest as possible), but other times they can be persistent and demand more efforts from different professionals. Some of the symptoms to flag that something is not right could be::

• Articulation disorders: the child has difficulty on articulating words and sometimes changes one phoneme by another one, such as ‘r’ by ‘w’ (‘ring’ becomes ‘wing’), or omits a phoneme (such as omitting the ‘s’ from ‘smile’ and speaking ‘mile’) or even adding a phoneme where it was unnecessary (such as adding ‘m’ to ‘emu’, speaking ‘memu’ instead). Lisping is a correlated disorder, when ‘s’ is changed into ‘th’ (such as ‘sing a song’ becoming ‘thing a thong’).
• Cluttering: in this case, the child shows some difficulty on keeping ideas coherently while speaking. Sometimes there are unexpected bursts or pauses in the middle of a sentence, with no apparent reason. Disorganised or confusing sentences are also another issue from cluttering.
• Dyspraxia: the simple act of speaking is actually very complex and involves the use of both muscular and respiratory systems. Typically, people speak without noticing all the muscular movements around the mouth, nose and throat to make sounds while releasing air. Sometimes, the child might start having issues on coordinating these mechanisms in order to talk. Dyspraxia can be also called Apraxia.
• Stuttering: the child is displaying issues on keeping fluidity of words when talking, sometimes repeating phonemes (such as ‘d-d-d-d-dragonfly’) or holding the phoneme for longer than expected (such as ‘hooooooorse’).