- The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act officially defines speech and language impairments as “a communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.”
Characteristics
Speech Impairments fall under communication disorders, and it can impair the way students talk, understand, read and write.
- TALKING:
- May be apparent in how the student expresses herself or himself during casual and formal conversations
- Frequency of responses
- Type of responses
- May be apparent in how the student AVOIDS opportunities to participate in casual and formal conversations
- UNDERSTANDING
- May be apparent in how the student expresses herself or himself during causal formal conversations
- Frequency and type of responses (always smiles, always nods, always looks puzzled)
- May be apparent in how the student avoids opportunities to participate in casual and formal conversations
- Never raises hand to answer questions
- READING
- Maybe be apparent in how the student participates in activities that require oral reading, reporting and responding
- WRITING
- The motor difficulties the student has in speech production may also affect the motor control the student has for writing.
There are three main categories for Speech Impairments, they are articulation disorders, fluency disorders, and voice disorders.
Articulation Disorders: may be related to limitation in the bones, the muscles or the neuromuscular support that cause the person to make errors in speech sounds, including:- Omissions: (bo for boat)
- Substitutions: (wabbit for rabbit)
- Distortions (shlip for ship)
Fluency Disorders: are demonstrated by hesitations, repetitions, or prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases. Common fluency disorders include:
- Stuttering: rapid-fire repetitions of consonant of vowel sounds especially at the beginning of words, prolongations, hesitations, interjections, and complete verbal blocks
- Cluttering: excessively fast and jerky speech
Voice Disorders: usually from disorders of the larynx and are evident by abnormal production and/or absences of vocal quality, pitch, loudness, resonance, and/or duration.
Accommodations
- Written assignments or responses to specific questions that can be shared with the class by someone else reading them aloud are an alternative to oral presentations.
- For students who choose to participate orally, faculty and class members should be patient, offering encouragement and an opportunity to develop self-confidence in a challenging situation.
- The student can turn in a written assignment to substitute for an oral one, or the other way around.
- Modify grading based on speech impairment.
- Use teamwork for task completions with a range of responsibilities within the team.
- Do not assume understanding of oral instruction.
- Use diaries and checklist to support sequencing and completing tasks.
