Most Common Speech Disorders

Speech-language pathology is a field of expertise practiced by a clinician known as a speech-language pathologist (SLP), also called speech and language therapist or speech therapist, who specializes in the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of Speech Disorders, cognition, voice disorders, and swallowing disorders.

Speech disorders affect verbal fluency and the articulation of sounds, that is, pronunciation, which is a certain extent normal until five years of age.

There are several speech disorders. Here are the most common ones:

1. Dyslalia with its different types, is that disorder in which there are several errors in the articulation of words like the substitution of sounds, distortions of the correct or omission or insertion of these.
2. Stuttering or disorder of fluidity, is a disorder centered in the execution of speech, specifically in its fluidity and rhythm. During the emission of speech the person suffers one or more spasms or blockages that interrupt the normal rhythm of communication.
3. Dysarthria, difficulty in articulating words due to a neurological problem that causes the mouth and muscles to emit speech, to not have the proper muscle tone and therefore do not respond correctly.
4. Clefts, are the alterations or defects in the articulation of phonemes produced by anomalies, congenital or acquired in speech organs.

It is very important first to be done from the Speech Language Pathologist, an exhaustive evaluation of the child, where is necessary to know the cause of each disorder and then to plan the appropriate therapeutic plan.