The Light Center, College of the Redwoods

Often it is not until something is lost that we realize the value of it in the first place. Such can be the case with something as fundamental as our ability to interact with one another verbally. A speech and/or language impairment can be devastating in terms of one's ability to communicate with others. It also impacts on one's self esteem and self-image. Part of a person's image is wrapped up in what they sound like: their voice, dialect, word choice, verbal expressions. When this is either impaired or taken away, it can have social, educational and interpersonal ramifications.

There is often confusion between what is a "speech" problem, versus "language" impairment. Speech Impairment refers to one’s ability to produce the sounds of the language. This production can be affected by a number of factors including anatomy, neurology, hearing, and cognitive ability. An individual with a cleft palate (a "hole" in the roof of the mouth) can have very nasal sounding speech production with speech production often being produced from the nose rather than the mouth. There are very successful surgical repairs for cleft palate. A person who has suffered a stroke, head injury, degenerative disease such as Parkinson's or ALS can have impaired speech production. This can be the result of either paralysis of the lips, tongue, muscles surrounding the mouth, or it can be due to nerve damage resulting in slow, slurred and/or distorted speech production. Dysarthria refers to the slurring associated with someone with Multiple Sclerosis or stroke. Apraxia refers to the inability to command the muscles to do what the brain wants them to do. For example, one may be able to lick their lips to remove food (an automatic response), but cannot lick them when asked to do so (volitional response). As technology improves, there are more options for people with neurologically related speech disorders. The technology needed surrounding synthesized speech devices is constantly developing. Individuals who are deaf or hearing impaired also have speech problems. The degree of such a problem relates to the type, degree, and onset of the hearing impairment. Those with a severe impairment since birth have considerably more difficulty than a person who lost their hearing in adulthood. Finally, there are speech problems associated with cognitive disorders including autism, Down's Syndrome and other developmental disorders.

While a speech disorder or impairment does not itself affect cognition, a language disorder often does. Language refers to vocabulary and word choice, syntax or word order, grammar, intonation and gestures. Language is often needed for problem solving and analysis and when this function is impaired, so is our ability to problem solve. Language disorders can occur simultaneously with speech problems and are often one of the most problematic symptoms of other conditions. Language problems are commonly noted in individuals with autism, developmental disabilities, head injury, stroke and the hearing impaired.

November 22, 1999

There are three main types of language disorder:

• Receptive Language Disorder

A receptive disorder affects our "reception" of information, thus impacting on our comprehension of language, verbal or written. This is common in individuals with developmental disabilities, stroke, head injury, and hearing loss. It can also be noted in some psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. It can also affect the comprehension of non-verbal language such as facial expression and gestures. Memory is often impaired in receptive disorders.

• Expressive Language Disorder

An expressive language disorder refers to a deficit in one's ability to express information verbally or in written form. This often takes the form of difficulty with thought formulation, difficulty "finding" the word one wants to say, telegraphic speech (nouns and verbs with few other word forms), uncontrolled verbalization (swearing, obscenities) such as in Tourette's Syndrome or some forms of stroke and head injury.

• Processing Disorders

Language processing disorders relate to the several auditory processes needed for language understanding. The October 11^th 1999 Disability News outlined some of these, including auditory memory, sequencing, and figure ground.

Comments? mailto:trish-blair@redwoods.edu

The day a person becomes a cynic
is the day he loses his youth.
Marvin D. Levy