Some children find it hard to talk and understand what other people say. The term used to describe this is speech and language impairment.
Speech and language impairments can be caused by conditions such as hearing impairment, Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy or autism, but not always. Where there is no obvious cause, the term specific speech or language impairment is often used. Sometimes children can have a specific speech and language impairment in combination with another difficulty or disability.
Most children with specific speech or language impairments are of completely normal intelligence but may have other specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or ADHD.
About 6% of children have a specific speech or language impairment and at least 1 child in 500 has a severe, long-term difficulty.
Different forms of speech and language impairment
- speech apparatus – the mouth, tongue, nose, breathing and how they are co-ordinated and operated by muscles
- phonology – the sounds that make up language
- syntax or grammar – the way that words and parts of words combine in phrases and sentences
- semantics – the meaning of sentences, words, and bits of words (semantic and pragmatic disorders)
- pragmatics – how language is used in different situations and how feelings are conveyed (semantic and pragmatic disorders)
- intonation and stress (prosody) – the rhythm and music of the way we speak
Within these areas some children may have difficulties in understanding language (receptive difficulties), some in using language (expressive difficulties), and some in both understanding and using language.
Afasic publishes Glossary Sheets which explain these speech and language difficulties in greater detail.
