Speech and language are different.  A person can have problems with one or both.

 

What is speech?  Speech is how we say sound and words. 

Speech includes:

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• Articulation - how we make speech sounds using the mouth, lips, and tongue. For example, we need to be able to say the “r” sound to say "rabbit" instead of "wabbit.”

• Voice - how we use our vocal folds and breath to make sounds. Our voice can be loud or soft or high- or low-pitched. We can hurt our voice by talking too much, yelling, or coughing a lot.

• Fluency - this is the rhythm of our speech. We sometimes repeat sounds or pause while talking. People who do this a lot may stutter.

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What is language?  Language refers to the words we use and how we use them to share ideas and get what we want. 

Language includes:

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• What words mean.  Some words have more than one meaning. For example, “star” can be a bright object in the sky or someone famous.

• How to make new words.  For example, we can say “friend,” “friendly,” or “unfriendly” and mean something different.

• How to put words together.  For example, in English we say, “peg walked to the new store” instead of “peg walk store new.”

• What we should say at different times. For example, we might be polite and say, “would you mind moving your foot?” But, if the person does not move, we may say, “get off my foot!”

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Examples of Speech disorders:

• Articulation – difficulty producing specific sounds

• Phonology – difficulty with sound patterns

• Apraxia – a motor speech disorder (difficulty coordinating the movements needed to make the sounds)

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Language disorders:

• Receptive language – having trouble understanding what others say

• Expressive language – having problems sharing our thoughts, ideas and feelings

• Pragmatic language – using language in different situations and with different people (also called social communication

 

Other disorders:​​​

• Hearing loss/deafness – partial or complete loss of hearing

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How do you know if your child needs therapy?

• Speech milestones – (click here)

• Language milestones – (click here)

• Literacy milestones – (click here)

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How can we help? (click here)