What Is Speech And Language Therapy? Let’s Find Out!

What Is The Role Of Speech And Language Therapy?

Is your child too shy to speak at school, and you’re worried it may be affecting their ability to learn?  He may be suffering from a speech and language disorder, and language therapy could help.  

The right therapy can help your child overcome their difficulties and improve their confidence.  

Speech and language therapy aren’t just for children, as it can also help adults with stammering and stuttering as well as those suffering from pronunciation problems.

Speech therapy is the use of speech-language therapy (SLT) to correct or compensate for weaknesses in speech production or speech-language syntax.

It is usually used for children with speech disabilities, but also works for adults with speech deficits.

It is also used to improve speech intelligibility, speech fluency, or speech perception, or to eliminate the effects of neurological disorders that affect the production or comprehension of speech.

To learn more about primary speech and language disorder, keep reading.

Let’s start!

What are Speech and language Disorder?

Speech and language disorders (SLDs) are significant conditions that affect children. They can be caused by neurons that do not communicate properly, or by habits that interfere with the brain.

When habits interfere with the brain, the result is “stuttering” or “word-finding” problems.

Stuttering is the most common independent speech and language disorder, and is typically seen in children between the ages of three and five.

Many people will not admit to stuttering, but it is very common, so much so that it is estimated that one out of every five children experiences the disorder.

Many people with these conditions also have learning difficulties and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Speech and language disorders affect one in every 10 people.

People who have communication and language difficulties resulting from any of the following: 

• Learning disorders: These problems affect children’s ability to learn how to use their voice and language.
• Speech and language disabilities: These problems affect the way we speak and understand our language.
• Speech and language processing disorders: These problems affect our ability to think and talk about thoughts and ideas.
• Communication disorder: This condition affects how well we can express ourselves through writing, gestures, facial expressions, and other forms of nonverbal behaviour.

• Note: If you suspect your child has one of these issues, it may be time for him/her to see an SLT specialist.

What do speech and language therapists do?

The role of a speech-language pathologist varies depending upon the age group they treat.

When working with young children, some speech and language pathologists focus on helping them develop important oral motor skills.

Like babbling, sucking, swallowing, chewing, breathing, etc., while still learning basic vocabulary and grammar.

Some also help teach parents ways to support their children during early development.

With older kids, cycle of speech and language therapists might concentrate on improving speaking skills, including pronunciation, intonation, and enunciating different syllables correctly.

They often recommend using picture books instead of traditional stories because they’re easier for most students to follow along with.

As teens grow up, many begin taking part in social activities where conversation is needed. In addition, as teenagers mature, they require more attention to detail than younger peers.

This means they’ll benefit if their therapist focuses on teaching proper posture, eye contact, body awareness, and hand placement.

If your teen needs extra help at home, he/she might get private lessons once per week or twice per month. However, this depends on what kind of program his/her teacher recommends.

What is involved in speech therapy?

There are three main types of therapy programs available for adults and development in children. 

1. Direct interventions

Involve treating each person individually by having an experienced professional meet with them several times over several months.

The goal is to improve specific areas of functioning such as listening comprehension, articulation, fluency, memory, problem solving, and academic achievement.

2. Indirect interventions

Provide information and suggestions that allow people to work toward goals without being directly supervised.

For example, teachers might give tips on how to encourage good study habits in school or family members could offer encouragement when someone practices new behaviours.

3. Generalisation training

Involves encouraging healthy behaviours across settings so that individuals apply those learned strategies outside of therapy sessions.

It helps prevent relapse into old patterns after treatment ends.

What is involved in language therapy?

Language therapy includes all aspects of difficulties with communication, from developing words and sentences to understanding others’ emotions.

It takes place in individual therapy sessions lasting about 30 minutes.

A typical session will include:

• A review of current goals and objectives
• An assessment of strengths and weaknesses
• Using intervention techniques
• Teaching clients to recognise signs of stress and anxiety
• Helping clients learn to cope mechanisms
• Providing feedback regarding progress made
• Assessing client motivation
• Incorporating other therapies

How Does speech and hearing therapist work with children?

Welfare of children have a unique way of communicating through sounds called phonetics.

Phonics refers to the process of breaking down spoken sound into its parts and letters.

For instance, “shoe” can be broken down into two separate sounds – “s” and “h”. The first letter represents the beginning sound, while the second character indicates the ending sound.

This same principle applies to every word we speak.

During childhood, our brains develop, especially regarding hearing skills. At birth, babies hear high-pitched noises like sirens, bells, and whistles.

As kids age, these higher pitched sounds become less noticeable. By 3 years of age, most infants only notice low pitch sounds.  

Benefits of Speech and Language therapy

There are several benefits associated with having an individualised evidence of speech and language therapy plan.

• Individuals with autism spectrum disorder show improvements across multiple domains, such as verbal comprehension, expressive abilities, adaptive behaviours, and social interaction.
• In fact, those who received intensive interventions could achieve scores similar to typically developing controls by adulthood.
• Individuals with specific communication difficulties or disorders have shown significant gains when receiving treatment from specialists.
• Researchers found that participants showed improved articulation, phonological awareness, fluency, and accuracy after undergoing treatments designed for their conditions.
• People with dyslexia have experienced improvement in reading speed, word recognition, spelling, memory recall, and decoding strategies.
• Individuals who receive such demand for services improve faster than those without them. However, if someone receives no treatment, recovery will take longer than two years or even three.

Conclusion

Speech-language pathologists, or SLPs, work with many types of patients.

Including level of children with autism, people with Alzheimer’s disease, stroke victims, and people with developmental disabilities.

The focus of SLPs is to assess, diagnose, and treat a career in speech, language, cognitive-communication, and swallowing disorders in patients.