This is a glossary of medical terms related to communications disorders which are conditions that could have the potential to negatively impact the level at which an individual can hear, understand, and respond to others.
A communication disorder is any disorder that affects an individual's ability to comprehend, detect, or apply language and speech to engage in discourse effectively with others. The delays and disorders can range from simple sound substitution to the inability to understand or use one's native language.
Speech disorders or speech impediments are a type of communication disorder where 'normal' speech is disrupted. This can mean stuttering, lisps, etc. Someone who is unable to speak due to a speech disorder is considered mute.
Thought disorder (TD) refers to disorganized thinking as evidenced by disorganized speech. Specific thought disorders include derailment, poverty of speech, tangentiality, illogicality, perseveration, and thought blocking.
Palilalia, a complex tic, is a language disorder characterized by the involuntary repetition of syllables, words, or phrases. It has features resembling other complex tics such as echolalia or coprolalia, but, unlike other aphasias, palilalia is based upon contextually correct speech.
Speech is human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words, and using those words in their semantic character as words in the lexicon of a language according to the syntactic constraints that govern lexical words' function in a sentence. In speaking, speakers perform many different intentional speech acts, e.g., informing, declaring, asking, persuading, directing, and can use enunciation, intonation, degrees of loudness, tempo, and other non-representational or paralinguistic aspects of vocalization to convey meaning. In their speech speakers also unintentionally communicate many aspects of their social position such as sex, age, place of origin, physical states, psychic states, physico-psychic states, education or experience, and the like.
Pressure of speech is a tendency to speak rapidly and frenziedly, as if motivated by an urgency not apparent to the listener. The speech produced is difficult to interrupt.
Speech-language pathology, also known as communication sciences and disorders in the United States, is a fast-growing profession that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, offers about 120,000 jobs in the United States alone. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has 166,000 members, who are audiologists, speech-language pathologists, speech, language, and hearing scientists, and speech language pathology assistants. To begin practice in most areas of the United States, a prospective therapist must have an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree in speech pathology. A 9-month, supervised clinical fellowship year is then completed, after which the Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) in speech pathology from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is granted. In order to be certified clinically competent the Praxis exam must be passed. In some areas the master's degree is not required. In some areas additional requirements must be met: an additional certification from ASHA in school speech pathology and audiology, certification in special education instruction, and/or and must have passed any other federal or state examinations for licensure and certification. To retain the ASHA license a minimum amount of continuing education must be completed. A doctorate is not currently required, but that may change, as it has for many other areas of therapy. Speech-language pathology overlaps with many educational disciplines, such as communication sciences, linguistics, special education, and health care. This article will explore some of the fundamental elements of speech-language pathology, looking at the career in an educational setting.
Lawrence J. Raphael (born) is a professor in the Communications Sciences and Disorders department at Adelphi University in New York City, New York. Recently, he has become known for his cluttering research, although he has a more extensive publication record in speech production and perception. He was a research associate at Haskins Laboratories from 1970 to 1999.
A speech sound disorder (SSD) is a speech disorder in which some speech sounds in a child's language are either not produced, not produced correctly, or are not used correctly. The term protracted phonological development is sometimes preferred when describing children's speech to emphasize the continuing development while acknowledging the delay.
Auditory processing disorder and rarely known as King-Kopetzky syndrome or auditory disability with normal hearing (ADN) is an umbrella term for a variety of disorders that affect the way the brain processes auditory information. Individuals with APD usually have normal structure and function of the outer, middle, and inner ear. However, they cannot process the information they hear in the same way as others do, which leads to difficulties in recognizing and interpreting sounds, especially the sounds composing speech. It is thought that these difficulties arise from dysfunction in the central nervous system.
Tachylalia or tachylogia is extremely rapid speech. Tachylalia occurs in many clutterers and many people who have speech disorders.
Apraxia of speech (AOS) is an acquired oral motor speech disorder affecting an individual's ability to translate conscious speech plans into motor plans, which results in limited and difficult speech ability. By the definition of apraxia, AOS affects volitional movement patterns, however AOS usually also affects automatic speech.
Speech and language impairment are basic categories that might be drawn in issues of communication involve hearing, speech, language, and fluency.
In psychology, logorrhea or logorrhoea is a communication disorder that causes excessive wordiness and repetitiveness, which can sometimes lead to incoherency. Logorrhea is sometimes classified as a mental illness, though it is more commonly classified as a symptom of mental illness or brain injury.
A lisp is a speech impediment in which a person misarticulates sibilants, . These misarticulations often result in unclear speech.
