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Different Kinds of Speech Impediments

Speech pathologists work with clients who have a range of speech disorders. Stuttering, cleft palate, recovering after a head injury, word choice problems and dyslexia are all reasons that a person might seek help from a speech pathologist. Speech pathologists help people meet goals with their speaking, in order to minimize the impediments that inhibit their communication. A speech impediment is anything that inhibits a person's speaking abilities in a certain language.

  1. Physical Impediments

    • Many physical impediments inhibit a person's ability to pronounce certain words or sounds. A cleft palate may the most predominant speech impediment. Cleft palates and cleft lips occur when a baby's mouth does not form properly, leaving a hole between the roof of the mouth and a nasal cavity. This type of malformation and other birth defects of the tongue, mouth or throat can be impediments. Muscular issues, such as hypotonia (low muscle tone) and dysphagia (difficulty swalowing) can also cause problems with speech.

    Disease and Disorder

    • Many mental impediments cause problems for a person's speech, although these are hard to diagnose because in many cases they do not have a physical manifestation. Aphasia, for example, is a speech disorder that affects the areas of the brain that use language. It results in a person's inability to recognize or use language. Spasmodic dysphonia is another condition that causes a person to have repeated spasms when talking, which interrupts the flow of words.

    Non-Physical Impediments

    • There are many speech impediments that are not full-fledged brain disorders but still impede the mental processes needed for speech. For example, stuttering does not stem from a physical defect or problem, but it is manifested in a physical way. Individuals who stutter repeat certain sounds over and over again, and they are unable to say the rest of a word, phrase or sentence. Other non-physical disorders may include monotone speech, muteness, cluttering, volume problems, questions of appropriate speech and pronunciation of words.

    Cultural Impediments

    • Many speech pathologists work with speech impediments that revolve around racial, cultural, economic, sexual and regional aspects. They help individuals whose patterns of communication might not be appropriate or suitable for a certain environment. For example, a young student may have trouble in school because her speech is littered with words such as "like," "uh" or "um." Another impediment may stem from learning English as a second language and having difficulty with its differences from a native tongue.

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