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12.8: Language Disorders

  • Page ID
    228415
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    • Aphasia - Loss of language - expressive and receptive
    • Articulation Disorder - An articulation disorder
    • Fluency Disorders - Fluency disorders
    • Voice Disorders - Disorders of the voice[1]

    Aphasia

    A loss of the ability to produce or understand language is referred to as aphasia. Without the brain, there would be no language. The human brain has a few areas that are specific to language processing and production. When these areas are damaged or injured, capabilities for speaking or understanding can be lost, a disorder known as aphasia. These areas must function together in order for a person to develop, use, and understand language.

    Articulation disorder

    An articulation disorder refers to the inability to correctly produce speech sounds (phonemes) because of imprecise placement, timing, pressure, speed, or flow of movement of the lips, tongue, or throat (NIDCD, 2016). Sounds can be substituted, left off, added or changed. These errors may make it hard for people to understand the speaker. They can range from problems with specific sounds, such as lisping to severe impairment in the phonological system. Most children have problems pronouncing words early on while their speech is developing. However, by age three, at least half of what a child says should be understood by a stranger. By age five, a child's speech should be mostly intelligible. Parents should seek help if by age six the child is still having trouble producing certain sounds. It should be noted that accents are not articulation disorders (Medline Plus, 2016a).

    Fluency disorders

    Fluency disorders affect the rate of speech. Speech may be labored and slow, or too fast for listeners to follow. The most common fluency disorder is stuttering.

    Stuttering is a speech disorder in which sounds, syllables, or words are repeated or last longer than normal. These problems cause a break in the flow of speech, which is called dysfluency (Medline Plus, 2016b). About 5% of young children, aged two-five, will develop some stuttering that may last from several weeks to several years (Medline Plus, 2016c). Approximately 75% of children recover from stuttering. For the remaining 25%, stuttering can persist as a lifelong communication disorder (National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, NIDCD, 2016). This is called developmental stuttering and is the most common form of stuttering.

    Brain injury, and in very rare instances, emotional trauma may be other triggers for developing problems with stuttering. In most cases of developmental stuttering, other family members share the same communication disorder. Researchers have recently identified variants in four genes that are more commonly found in those who stutter (NIDCD, 2016).

    Voice disorders

    Hoarseness is the most common voice symptom in children. While surgery can be used to treat voice disorders, voice training is used far more often and with considerable success (Yi & Yang, 2023).

    adult using a card to teach a child some language
    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Speech therapy.[3]

    References:

    Yi, S., & Yang, H. (2023). U pdate on the pediatric adverse vocal behavior voice disorders: a clinical practice review. European Journal of Pediatrics, 182(6), 2485-2497. doi: 10.1007/s00431-023-04879-4.

    Attributions:

    Child Growth and Development by Jennifer Paris, Antoinette Ricardo, and Dawn Rymond, 2019, is licensed under CC BY 4.0

    [1] Content by Dawn Rymond is licensed under CC BY 4.0

    [2] Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

    [3] Image by EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0


    12.8: Language Disorders is shared under a mixed license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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