Speech and Language Disorders
Communication is often taken
for granted. Most of us learned to talk
at a very early age and don’t remember the
process of learning how to speak. However,
there are medical conditions and disease processes
that can significantly impair the ability to speak
and communicate effectively.
These include but not limited to strokes and other
brain injuries, dementia, progressive and degenerative
diseases of the central nervous system (such as
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, “Lou Gherig’s
Disease”), and certain cancers of the head
and neck.
The terms “speech” and
“language” can be confusing.
In some cases, although there is no trouble in
choosing the correct words, the process of speaking
clearly and precisely is affected. For example,
the speech is “slurred” or “sluggish.”
This happens when muscles involved in speaking
become weakened from some condition, a disease
or are surgically altered. In the purest
sense, this is a “speech disorder.”
In others cases, however, there is a loss of access
to the language system when there is difficulty
turning thoughts into words. This causes
difficulty choosing the correct term for common
objects or in selecting the words to make up a
sentence. This describes a “language
disorder.” The two are not mutually
exclusive and frequently there is some combination
of both speech and language deficits. The
following list defines the most common terms associated
with speech and language
disorders.
