Children can have difficulty producing sounds and words, leading to unintelligible speech and a hard time being understood by others. Children may misarticulate some sounds as they develop their speech skills. Children are expected to develop and produce sounds individually, in words and in sentences, by a certain age. Most have all the sounds developed by the time they are eight years old. A child who has difficulty with producing certain sounds may have a speech sound disorder. Some conditions that can affect speech and lead to speech sound disorders, include Autism Spectrum Disorder, hearing loss, Down Syndrome or other genetic syndromes, brain damage and Cerebral Palsy.
Speech Sound Development and Disorders
SYMPTOMS
- Substitute, leave, add or change the sounds
- Sounds are produced with inappropriate and excessive nasal resonance
- Lisps
- Be difficult to understand
HOW WE CAN HELP
- A Speech, Language and Swallowing Pathologist can help the child say sounds correctly. Treatment would include learning the correct way to produce difficult sounds, learning to tell when sounds are right / wrong, practicing sounds in words, phrases and in sentences.
- At Q Enrichment Center, our Speech, Language and Swallowing Pathologist will conduct an extensive comprehensive assessment to determine the type of difficulty, the severity, as well as the diagnosis related to the speech difficulties. A detailed report will be completed along with a treatment plan specific to each individual’s needs.