Treatments For Speech Disorder
A person's capacity to produce sounds that form words is affected by speech problems. They are not the same as language problems, which make it difficult for people to learn new words or understand what others are saying. Stuttering, apraxia, and dysarthria are examples of speech impairments. Muscle weakness, brain damage, degenerative diseases, autism, and hearing loss are all possible causes of speech problems.
Speech difficulties can have a negative impact on a person's self-esteem and quality of life. Speech therapy, breathing exercises, and anti-anxiety drugs, in some cases, can assist improve speech and alleviate symptoms.
Individuals can work with speech therapists to learn the proper way to make sounds, including when and how to move their mouth and tongue, practice speaking specific sounds, learn to recognize whether a sound is correct or incorrect, and practice using sounds in longer phrases. Speech pathologists can provide activities to children and adults to help them improve their speech. Other medical or mental health care may also be required, depending on the type of speech impairment.
We have also created a detailed information guide on Stuttering that you can check out on our website as Stuttering Guide.
Children and adults from all walks of life are affected by speech impairments. However, these issues do not have to prevent someone from communicating, learning, or working. Licensed speech pathologists can assist people to improve their speaking skills, as well as learn to use augmentative and alternative communication modalities when appropriate.
Treatment options are usually determined by the severity of the speech impairment and its underlying cause.
Among the treatment options available are:
Exercises in speech therapy that focus on increasing familiarity with specific words or sounds
Strengthening activities that target the muscles that make speech sounds
Therapy options for speech disorders:
Contextual utilization
Contextual utilization approaches understand that in connected speech, speech sounds are created in syllable-based contexts and that some (phonemic/phonetic) contexts can help with the right production of a specific sound.
Contextual utilization approaches may be beneficial for children who employ a sound inconsistently and require a method to assist them to produce that sound consistently in different situations. A specific sound's instruction begins in the syllable context(s) where the sound can be made correctly. The syllable is utilized as a building block for more advanced practice.
For example, in the context of a high front vowel, such as "tea," the creation of a "t" may be aided. For voiced, velar, alveolar, and nasal consonants, facilitative circumstances or "likely best chances" for production can be determined. For nasal consonants, a "best bet" is before a low vowel, as in "crazy."
Contrast therapy
To treat phonological mistake patterns, phonological contrast methods are widely used. They emphasize sound contrasts necessary to distinguish one word from another in order to improve phonemic contrasts in the child's speech. Instead of individual sounds, contrast techniques employ contrasting word pairs as objectives. Word pairs with one or more different speech sounds are used in contrast treatment. "Beat" and "feet" or "dough" and "display" are two examples of word pairs.
Minimal Oppositions therapy (also known as "minimal pairings" therapy) involves using pairs of words that differ only by one phoneme or single characteristic to communicate a shift in meaning. Minimal pairs are employed to establish contrasts that aren't present in the child's phonological system (for example, "door" vs. "sore," "pot" vs. "spot," and "key" vs. "tea"). The Minimal Pairs Approach is suited for children who have one or two phonological processes that are no longer age-appropriate and have mild to moderate speech sound problems. It's also useful for folks who want to change their accents.
To teach an unknown sound, Maximal Oppositions uses pairs of words that have a contrastive sound that is maximally distinct and varies on various dimensions (e.g., voice, place, and manner). Because /m/ and /k/ differ in more than one dimension—/m/ is a bilabial voiced nasal, whereas /k/ is a velar voiceless stop—"mall" and "call" are maximum pairings. The Maximal Pairs Approach is designed for children with normal oral and speech motor abilities who are lacking at least six sounds from their speech sound inventories.
Target selection
Target selection entails a person rehearsing specific sounds or words in order to become acquainted with specific speech patterns. Clinicians working with children who have several mistakes in their speech sound problems frequently prioritize specific errored sounds for correction. However, because there are various target selection aspects to weigh, some of which are directly opposed to one another, this priority is not always an easy or well-defined clinical decision.
On the other hand, there are occasionally several justifiable reasons to prioritize a specific procedure or sound over others that were created in error. A crucial aspect of high-quality clinical service provision is having a well-informed justification for what sounds/sound classes to emphasize in treatment. As a result, speech-language pathologists must be aware of the various rationales for prioritizing therapeutic targets, as well as the fact that the same prioritization may not be suitable for all children undergoing therapy. Difficult words or sounds that cause speech disturbances are examples of therapeutic goals.
Oral-motor therapy
The movement of the jaw, tongue, lips, teeth, and cheeks is addressed in oral motor therapy. It deals with the positioning of the aforementioned structures in the mouth. Oral motor exercises enhance mobility, positioning awareness, coordination, and oral muscle and structural strength. It's used to change the tone of the muscles in the mouth (cheeks, tongue, and lips), face, and neck. Oral motor therapy helps youngsters with structural abnormalities like a short frenulum, cleft palate, or high arched palate acquire appropriate patterns. It can help with high or low tone, respiratory capacity, and suck swallow breath synchronization, among other physiological difficulties. The goal of oral-motor therapy is to increase muscle strength, motor control, and breath control. These activities can aid in the development of fluency, which results in smoother, more natural-sounding speech.
Ear device
Small electronic aids that fit into the ear canal are known as ear devices. These devices can assist people who stammer improve their fluency.
Some ear gadgets playback altered versions of the wearer's voice to make it appear as though they are chatting with someone else. Other ear gadgets generate noise that aids in stuttering control.
Medication
Anxiety disorders can be caused by some speech abnormalities. Anxiety can be triggered by stressful situations, resulting in more pronounced speech disorder symptoms. Anxiety drugs may help some people minimize the symptoms of speech difficulties.
You can read more blogs about Speech Therapy.
Where do I find a Speech therapist?
To find a speech-language therapist, you can consult your child’s doctor for a referral or talk to teachers or school authorities for some guidance. If you are looking for online speech therapists,
Daffodil Health has a number of experienced SLPs with us. Go to speech therapy service to know more.
Follow the link to know about all the Upcoming Parent Training Events.
Follow this link to look at all the products that can be helpful for your child.
Hope you find all the resources useful. If you want to contribute to Daffodil Health's mission or become a part of the team, please reach out to team@daffodilhealth.com. We would love to get you onboard and work together towards unlocking the 10% workforce potential.