We had the privilege of speaking to Ellen Carlin, M.S. CCCSLP, IBCLC of Carlin Speech Pathology and Associates, Inc. to learn about: speech impairments, speech developmental milestones, and what goes into speech pathology to help children and parents work together to better communicate with the world around them.
What is a speech impairment?
A child that has difficulty with clarity of speech; the parent cannot understand what the child is saying or trying to communicate.
What should parents look for when it comes to speech impairments?
A child at 3 years old should have a vocabulary of 900 words, and they should be 90 percent intelligible to an unfamiliar listener. In other words, someone that the child does not see all the time should be able to understand what the child is saying 90 percent of the time.
How early should you be looking for signs of a speech impairment?
A child at 12 months of age should have at least 3-5 words acquired, and at 18 months of age a child begins to put 2 words together like, “Daddy go.” At 24 months they should have short little sentences and be pretty intelligible, and by 3 years old they need to be 90 percent intelligible to an unfamiliar listener.
What is the difference between a language disorder and a speech disorder?
Speech is the sound system and whether you can understand what your child is saying.
Language is: can they put the sentences together? Can they sequence their thought pattern? Can they follow directions accurately? Signs of language disorders are: children who may not have words at all, or when they start using their words, they are not using their parts of speech correctly. Sometimes they are unable to combine words or create syntactically correct sentences. They may have problems with pronoun usage, irregular pasttense, or difficulty expressing agentaction relationships. A child may exhibit an auditoryprocessing disorder, which makes it difficult to process what they hear and follow directions, impacting sequencing and language memory skills. These skills are important for success within the classroom and home environments.
Is there a correlation between language and speech disorders?
It varies; often speech and language disorders are cooccurring; however, a child may have a speech disorder with age level language skills or vice versa. When we evaluate a child, we assess to identify their communication abilities. Once a communication disorder is identified, we put a therapy plan together to address their specific needs.
What causes a speech disorder?
Sometimes it is a history of ear infections. When children are babies they learn to filter out background noises and learn what to pay attention to. If they have fluid in their ears they may not learn to adequately filter background noises, and it makes it harder to hear the speech frequencies. As they are building their articulation patterns, if they do not hear those sounds, they may put together abnormal speech patterns; resulting in a phonological or speech disorder. When children outgrow their ear infections, the fluid in their ears is gone so they can hear all the background noises, which are now heard as distractions. For example, they can hear a car go by or the air conditioner kick on, potentially contributing to attention problems, difficulty with following directions and processing language.
What should you do if you think your child has a speech impairment?
A parent may discuss their concerns with the child’s physician, request an evaluation from the school, or they can request a private evaluation. They can call the speech pathologist’s office; we offer complimentary phone consultations and will talk to parents about their concerns, and advise parents as to whether a speech and language evaluation is appropriate at this time.
What is something you wish more parents knew about when it comes to speech impairments?
Early intervention is key, I’d recommend if parents are having difficulties understanding their child or have concerns with their child’s speech and language, consult with their physician or a speech pathologist. The earlier communication disorders are identified and intervention begins, the less time their child will require speech and language services.
Do you have any advice for families and children who may be dealing with speech impairment in a speech and language program?
The best thing the parents can do is work as a partner with their therapist with followthrough activities during the week so their child can move faster. When the parent is practicing with their child weekly skills learned in therapy, those skills are mastered faster. Talk with the therapist and partner with them in the therapy plan to see what you can do at home. There are three important parts to the team: the child, the parents and the therapist.
Is there anything else that you want parents to know?
Feeding difficulties can be tied to speech impairments. Difficulties with early feeding skills may be a red flag for oral motor coordination difficulties which may also impact speech development. We find that some children have oralmotor weaknesses (weakness in the muscles of the mouth). We do an oralmotor evaluation to assess oral range of motion and strength. If a child has low muscle tone in their mouth, they may not be able to make the quick movement patterns with their gue and lips needed to produce clear speech. An oralmotor strengthening program can help increase oral muscle strength which helps with jaw and tongue coordination and allows the child to learn to produce the sounds faster and better.
What are the draws to your practice?
At Carlin Speech Pathology and Associates we are a team of 16 therapists. We provide individual therapy services for a wide variety of occupational therapy needs, speech and language disorders, as well as offer social language group sessions and feeding programs. Our feeding programs provide services for selective eaters of all ages and breastfeeding infants, as well as medically fragile infants and children. To find out more information about our programs, parents can visit our website: at www.CarlinSpeech.com
