Speech disorders or speech impairments are a type of communication disorder in which normal speech is disrupted. This can mean fluency disorders like stuttering, cluttering or lisps. Someone who is unable to speak due to a speech disorder is considered mute. Speech skills are vital to social relationships and learning, and delays or disorders that relate to developing these skills can impact individuals function. For many children and adolescents, this can present as issues with academics. Speech disorders affect roughly 11.5% of the US population, and 5% of the primary school population. Speech is a complex process that requires precise timing, nerve and muscle control, and as a result is susceptible to impairments. A person who has a stroke, an accident or birth defect may have speech and language problems.
Classifying speech into normal and disordered is more problematic than it first seems. By strict classification, only 5% to 10% of the population has a completely normal manner of speaking (with respect to all parameters) and healthy voice; all others have one disorder or another.
There are three different levels of classification when determining the magnitude and type of a speech disorder and the proper treatment or therapy:
Sounds the patient can produce
Phonemic – can be produced easily; used meaningfully and constructively
Phonetic – produced only upon request; not used consistently, meaningfully, or constructively; not used in connected speech
Stimulate sounds
Easily stimulated
Stimulate after demonstration and probing (i.e. with a tongue depressor)
Cannot produce the sound
Cannot be produced voluntarily
No production ever observed
Apraxia of speech may result from stroke or progressive illness, and involves inconsistent production of speech sounds and rearranging of sounds in a word ("potato" may become "topato" and next "totapo"). Production of words becomes more difficult with effort, but common phrases may sometimes be spoken spontaneously without effort.
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
This course integrates knowledge in basic, systems, clinical and computational neuroscience, and engineering with the goal of translating this integrated knowledge into the development of novel method
The objective of this course is to present the main models, formalisms and algorithms necessary for the development of applications in the field of natural language information processing. The concept
A communication disorder is any disorder that affects an individual's ability to comprehend, detect, or apply language and speech to engage in dialogue effectively with others. The delays and disorders can range from simple sound substitution to the inability to understand or use one's native language. Disorders and tendencies included and excluded under the category of communication disorders may vary by source. For example, the definitions offered by the American Speech–Language–Hearing Association differ from those of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual 4th edition (DSM-IV).
Speech-language pathology (or speech and language pathology) is a field of healthcare expertise practiced globally. Speech-language pathology (SLP) specializes in the evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of communication disorders (speech and language impairments), cognitive-communication disorders, voice disorders, pragmatic disorders, social communication difficulties and swallowing disorder across the lifespan.
Stuttering, also known as stammering, is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words, or phrases as well as involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the person who stutters is unable to produce sounds. The term stuttering is most commonly associated with involuntary sound repetition, but it also encompasses the abnormal hesitation or pausing before speech, referred to by people who stutter as blocks, and the prolongation of certain sounds, usually vowels or semivowels.
The hands, our silent performers in daily life, face overwhelming challenges when neurological impairments disrupt the simple tasks that compose our daily symphony. This thesis unveils a comprehensive framework for the objective monitoring of upper-limb re ...
In the last few years, stroke ranked as the second most common cause of death and is the third most significant condition affecting disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) worldwide. Being the most prevalent and quality of life impacting post-stroke symptom ...
Background Neurological disorders, such as stroke and chronic pain syndromes, profoundly impact independence and quality of life, especially when affecting upper extremity (UE) function. While conventional physical therapy has shown effectiveness in provid ...