What is a Voice Disorder?

Photo by Bess Hamiti on Pexels.com A voice disorder refers to any condition that affects the normal production, quality, pitch, loudness, or resonance of the voice, leading to difficulties in communication or discomfort when speaking. Voice disorders can result from various causes, including vocal misuse or abuse, vocal fold pathologies, neurological conditions, hormonal changes, and …

What is a Fluency Disorder? & What Causes it?

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com What is a Fluency Disorder? A fluency disorder is a type of speech disorder that affects the flow, rhythm, and timing of speech. People with fluency disorders may have difficulty speaking smoothly, and their speech may be interrupted by repetitions of sounds, syllables, or words, prolongations of sounds, or blocks …

Receptive & Expressive Language

Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com Before discussing receptive and expressive language it is important to first establish what language is... What is language? Language is a complex system of communication that allows humans to express and exchange information and ideas through the use of rule driven speech and symbols into meaningful messages. It is …

Similarities & Differences Between Apraxia & Dysarthria

What is Apraxia and Dysarthria? Apraxia and dysarthria are both speech disorders, but they differ in their underlying causes and symptoms. Apraxia is a motor speech disorder that results from damage to the parts of the brain responsible for planning and coordinating the movements needed for speech. Individuals with apraxia may have difficulty initiating and …

What Parents Should Know About Communication Disorders

Photo by Caleb Oquendo Lets first address this question, "What are the different talking/speaking issues that my child can have?" Articulation or Phonological disorders: These two are speech sound disorder in which a child has difficulty making certain sounds correctly. They may omit sounds or improperly alter them during speech, substitute sounds, or add sounds …

Orofacial Myofunctional Dysfunction Primer

Photo by Nasirun Khan Orofacial myofunctional dysfunction refers to a group of disorders that affect the function of the muscles used in speech, chewing, and swallowing. These disorders can affect the proper growth and development of the jaw, teeth, and facial muscles, and can lead to problems such as open bite, cross bite, and speech …

Treating Disfluencies

The first thing to keep in mind when developing fluent speech is that none of us will ever have 100% fluency when conversating throughout the day. On average, people are about 3% disfluent. Second thing to keep in mind is that fluency techniques must be practiced consistently overtime. Stuttering does not resolve itself over a …

Talking To Your Baby

The most important thing to do when talking to your baby is bombarding them with lots of language. Talk about everything! Do it in a way that is animated and interesting. You’re going to look goofy, if you don’t, you’re doing it wrong ;). Do your best to use short sentences or two-word phrases (e.g., …

Simultaneous Bilinguals

Did you know there are different types of bilinguals? In speech-language pathology circles there is a distinction between a simultaneous and sequential bilingual. The latter will be covered in a future blog, however in this blog we will discuss the former. For the purposes of this discussion, a simultaneous bilingual is defined as a person …

Patriot Award

Recently, Rebecca Bailey-Torres has been presented the Patriot Award. The Patriot Award reflects the actions made to support citizen warriors through a wide-range of measures including flexible schedules, time off prior to and after deployment, caring for families, and granting leave of absence if needed. Rebecca has supported Israel Montano in his participation with the …