How do I diagnose speech sound disorders, such as articulation and consistent and inconsistent phonological disorder?

As children learn to talk they produce some sounds in the wrong way. Most of the children able to say all the sounds of English by the age of 8. A child who does not say so is expected to have a speech sound disorder.

To make sound some children have trouble in controlling the tongue. Childhood apraxia of speech is not a common problem widely. But it can cause speech problems.

There are various ways to diagnose different types of speech and sound disorders.

If you need more information or you have a question regarding Speech Sound Disorder, you can discuss it with our HearingSol healthcare professionals, just give us a call on +91-9327901950. We are always here to help you.

Cause

Your child is suffering from speech sound disorders if he has.

• An inherited syndrome just like Down syndrome.
• Brain damage like cerebral palsy or a head injury.
• A disorder of development like autism.
• Ear infections, hearing loss.

Cause for adults

• Head injury or brain damage from a stroke.
• Mouth cancers indeed.
• Amyotrophic  Lateral Sclerosis or Parkinson’s diseases that get worse with time.

Diagnosis of Speech and sound disorder:

Dysarthria disorder:

It is a condition in which the muscles use for speaking are weak or they are facing difficulty in controlling them.

A Speech-language pathologist diagnoses your speech to find the type of dysarthria and also provide the patient with required speech therapy.

Symptoms

Symptoms of dysarthria

• Facing difficulty in moving tongue or muscles.
• Abnormal speaking.
• The fast narration that is difficult to understand.
• Slow speech.
• Brain tumor or brain injury.
• Weak throat muscles.

Steps to diagnose Dysarthria:

• Image tests: MRI and CT Scan capture a detailed image of the brain, head, and also a neck. These tests also help in finding speech problems.
• Brain and nerve studies: These studies are used to find the source of symptoms. The brain and nerve studies use application of an electroencephalogram. Therefore, it is used to measure electrical activity in the brain.
• Blood and Urine tests: First of all, these tests are used to determine different types of infection as well as other inflammatory diseases.
• Lumbar puncture(Spinal):  In this procedure, a health professional inserts the needle in your lower back. And also take a sample of cerebrospinal fluid for laboratory testing. This step is also helpful in diagnosing major infection and central nervous system disorder, cancer in the brain and spinal cord.
• Brain biopsy: In this doctor take a sample of brain tissue to test tumor.
• Neuropsychological tests: It is used to check cognitive skills. Cognitive skills include understanding speech, reading, writing and also many other skills.

Dyspraxia disorder:

Dyspraxia is a disorder in which a person having trouble with movement. It is not because of muscle weakness. The brain has a problem in moving the body parts which need for speaking such as lips jaws etc.

Another name of dyspraxia disorder are

• DVD(Developmental verbal dyspraxia)
• CAS(Childhood apraxia of speech)
• DAS(Developmental apraxia of speech)

Symptoms

• Poor balance in walking, riding.
• Lack of coordination with body parts.
• Visual perceptions are poor.
• Problems in drawing, writing.
• lack of reflexes.
• Difficulty in learning and planning.

Diagnosis

Speech sound disorder is based on different kinds of factors. Some of the factors are-

• In this, we need to observe child motor skills based on their age.
• Observe difficulty occurred in their daily life and also in academics.
• Check their motor skill weakness due to other neurological conditions.
• Also checks other symptoms present in the daily life activities of a person.

Articulation disorder and Phonological disorder

Articulation disorder

It is a delay in child pronunciation or error in pronouncing the word. A speech therapist checks. How far the articulation disorder affect the kids?

Consistent and Inconsistent speech disorder:

Consistent and Inconsistent speech disorder associated with literacy difficulties occurred in both reading, writing, and spellings.

Factors affecting a child’s difficulty in learning:

• A problem in vowel production
• Weak receptive language skills.
• Their low nonverbal IQ
• Poor phonological awareness
• It also includes the history of the family in learning difficulties.
• Speech difficulties in schools.

Phonological disorder:

It is a type of speech or sound disorder and child have an inability to forming words correctly. However, age is an important factor in the diagnosis of a phonological disorder.

Symptoms

• Cannot say some sort of words completely.
• The extra addition of alphabet in words.
• Errors and deletion in words.
• Repeating words continuously.

Diagnosis of phonological disorder

A speech therapist asks the patient to say different words. And then depending on the test, a speech-language pathologist uses an Arizona-4 test. This test helps to eliminate different disorders except for phonological disorder. These other disorders include hearing impairment, Neurological problems, and cognitive difficulties.

Read more…

• What is the most common speech disorder?
• Difference between voice coaching and speech therapy.
• Which degree is essential for a Speech Therapist?