How to Identify Speech Disorders
What is a speech disorder?A speech disorder is typically defined as a impediment of normal speech communication. Most speech disorders are characterized by slurred or stammered speech or the inability to speak entirely. Hearing loss or neurological disorders are common causes but others may include alcohol or drug abuse, brain damage or genetic disease. To identify speech disorders, do the following:Things You'll Need
- Internet Access
- Telephone access
- A doctor, specialist or speech pathologist
- A support system
Instructions
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Get a family history. Speech disorders are sometimes causes by genetic disease and can manifest at birth. Apraxia of speech is one such condition and is sometimes evident in very small children who have not yet learned how to speak. It occurs more often in boys than girls, and happens more often to children with other learning disabilities.
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Observe pronunciation. When a person suffers from a speech disorder, he will typically exhibit an inability to enunciate clearly. If a person is telling a story, notice if he has trouble relating the information to others. He may have difficulty speaking consistently and may even rearrange common sentence structure.
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Know about childhood development. You can help identify speech disorders if you know something about how people develop psychologically, linguistically and socially. Try to familiarize yourself with terms such as phonology, morphology, articulation, cluttering and pitch, for example.
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Talk with educators. A good way to identify if a child has a speech disorder is to talk with his teacher. Schools have language pathologists and other specialists who are well trained in identifying language problems.
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Get evaluated by a professional. A language specialist or speech pathologist can administer a wide array of tests. Reviewing the Porch Index of Communicative Ability is one standard criteria a professional will use to identify many different types of speech disorders.
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