Apraxia is a motor speech disorder that makes it hard to speak. It can take a lot of work through speech therapy to learn to say sounds and words better. In order for speech to occur, messages need to go from your brain to your mouth. These messages tell the muscles how and when to move to make sounds. When a child has apraxia of speech, the messages do not get through correctly. The child might not be able to move their lips or tongue in the right ways, even though their muscles are not weak. Sometimes, the child might not be able to say much at all.
Through articulation and phonology sound is produced. A child with an articulation disorder has problems forming speech sounds properly. A child with a phonological disorder can produce the sounds correctly but may use them in the wrong place. As a child grows up they develop speech sounds in a predictable order. It is normal for young children to make speech errors as their language develops; however, children with articulation or phonological disorder will be harder to understand and differ from their peers that are already speaking clearly.
Language disorders are a type of communication disorder where there is trouble with using and understanding spoken language. These disorders impact how people use and process language. The three kinds of language disorders are:
- Expressive language disorder: When someone has trouble getting their message across when they talk, struggling to put words together into sentences that make sense.
- Receptive language disorder: When someone struggles to get the meaning of what others are saying, often responding in ways that do not make sense.
- Mixed receptive-expressive language issues: When someone struggles with both using and understanding language.
Stuttering is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words, or phrases as well as involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the person who stutters is unable to produce sounds.
