Motor Speech/Articulation/Phonology

A motor speech disorder is present when a child struggles to produce speech because of weaknesses with motor planning or muscle tone needed to speak. There are two major types of motor speech disorders: dysarthria and apraxia.

Articulation refers to the production of clear and distinct speech sounds and focus on errors (e.g., distortions and substitutions) in production of individual speech sounds.

Phonological disorders focus on predictable, rule-based errors (e.g., fronting, stopping, and final consonant deletion) that affect more than one sound.

Difficulty in pronouncing speech sounds and words accurately can result in frustration of not being understood, embarrassment, low self esteem, and being teased. 

 

Feeding 

Feeding disorders include problems gathering food and getting ready to suck, chew and/or swallow it. This could be due to limited lingual movements, difficulty achieving lip closure in order to keep foods within mouth, among other difficulties. Feeding weaknesses are also characterized by food aversions and/or selectivity. This is observed by limited repertoire of foods, frequent gagging/vomitting accompanying certain foods, anxiety when faced with novels foods, extreme preference for certain brands of foods, preference for certain textures of foods. Feeding difficulties can lead to failure to thrive diagnosis, plateau of oral motor skills, and anxiety in social situations surrounding eating, such as birthday parties.

 

Play

Play has been coined "the work of children" because it is through play that children learn how to interact within their environment, acquire cognitive, motor, speech, language, and sociol-emotional skills, and discover their interests (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2007). Through various types of play, children learn to discover, create, and problem solve. Infants learn through the experiences they have with objects and people and soon learn cause and effect relationships as well as the understanding of joint attention through eye gaze and cooing/babbling. Through toddler and preschool years, children develop the building blocks for successful social, communication, motor, and academic skills while they play. They learn about turn taking and the growth of language and cognitive skills leads to more complex imaginary play which in turn increases creativity and curiosity about ones environment. If a child's play skills are not developing, the results in a negative influence on the development of their language skills.

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Language 

Receptive language refers to the understanding of language, including both gestures and words/sentences. Receptive language skills consist of (but is not limited to) knowledge of vocabulary, understanding concepts, and being able to interpret types of questions.

Expressive language refers to the "output" of language and the use of words, sentences, and gestures to convey messages and express wants and needs. Expressive language skills include labeling objects in ones environment, describing actions, putting words together to form sentences, grammar, and forming narratives. 

If left untreated, receptive and expressive language weaknesses can lead to difficulties forming friendships and engaging socially, developing reading and writing skills, completing higher level education, applying for jobs in both interviews and written application. 

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Communication and Pragmatic Language

Communication refers to the exchange of information by use of verbalizations, gestures, signs, and/or written language. Communicative intent is the knowledge and awareness of communication and using it to convey messages. Communicative intent is a vital puzzle piece that sometimes children lack. If children exhibit weaknesses in engaging and initiating communication, they may have difficulty developing effective communication skills.  

Pragmatic language refers to social language. This includes using language for a variety of purposes such as greeting, requesting, demanding, informing, questioning, etc., following conversational rules such as turn taking, staying on topic, engaging in appropriate eye contact, and adjusting language according to listener or situation, such as providing background information to an unfamiliar listener, speaking differently to a baby than an adult, etc. Pragmatic disorders often coexist with other language difficulties. Weaknesses in pragmatic skills  can lead to difficulties with social acceptance.

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