Motor Speech Disorders and Special Populations Vocabulary

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers key terms and definitions related to motor speech disorders, including childhood and acquired apraxia, cerebral palsy, cleft palate, intellectual disabilities, and hearing impairment.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)

A neurological pediatric speech sound disorder in which precision and consistency of movements are impaired in the absence of neuromuscular deficits, specifically affecting the planning/programming of movement sequences.

Groping Behavior

An ongoing series of articulator movements used by a child attempting to find the appropriate articulatory position.

Silent Posturing

The positioning of the articulators for a specific sound without any actual sound production.

Cerebral Palsy

A nonprogressive disorder of motor control caused by brain damage during pre-, peri-, or postnatal periods; it affects approximately $\sim 3/1,000$ births.

Spasticity

A condition of increased muscle tone found in some types of Cerebral Palsy.

Hemiplegia

A subtype of spasticity that affects only one side of the body.

Diplegia

A subtype of spasticity where the legs are more affected than the arms.

Quadriplegia

A subtype of spasticity where all four limbs are equally affected.

Dyskinesia

Involuntary, uncontrolled movements affecting speech and motor function, including athetoid movements.

Ataxia

A lack of coordination and balance that affects the timing and sequencing of speech movements.

Clefting

A division of a continuous structure due to the failure of the palate to fuse during fetal development.

VPI (Velopharyngeal Incompetence)

The central diagnostic issue in cleft palate, resulting in hypernasal resonance, nasal air emission, sound distortions, and substitutions.

Articulatory Backing

A compensatory measure in cleft palate cases using more posterior positioning (e.g., pharyngeal or glottal stops) to build pressure below the velopharyngeal port.

Intellectual Disability

Substantial limitations in intellectual and adaptive behavior (conceptual, social, and practical skills) manifesting before age $18$, with approximately $70\%$ of individuals having speech production difficulties.

Down Syndrome

A condition in which a person is born with an extra copy of chromosome $21$, often associated with hypotonia, macroglossia, and velopharyngeal dysfunction.

Macroglossia

An abnormally large tongue, associated with the characteristic articulatory difficulties in Down Syndrome.

Hypotonia

Low muscle tone, identified as a feature in individuals with Down Syndrome.

Hearing Impairment

A generic term for any diminished ability in normal sound reception, described by its type and degree (mild through profound).

Conductive Loss

A type of hearing loss affecting the mechanical transfer of sound waves through the outer or middle ear, often caused by otitis media.

Sensorineural Loss

A type of permanent hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlear hair cells or the auditory nerve.

Speech Intelligibility

The aspect of oral speech-language output that allows a listener to understand what a speaker is saying; it is the primary therapeutic goal for clients with hearing impairment.

Auditory-verbal therapy

A treatment approach for hearing impairment focused on developing spoken communication with full family involvement.

Acquired Apraxia of Speech

A disorder of expressive communication resulting from brain damage affecting the planning and programming of speech sounds, sequences, and prosody, while auditory comprehension remains intact.

Oral (Nonverbal) Apraxia

A disturbance in planning and executing volitional nonspeech movements of oral structures, such as the inability to stick out the tongue on command.

Dysarthria

A group of neurogenic speech disorders caused by neuromuscular dysfunction affecting respiration, phonation, resonation, and articulation.

Bradylalia

An abnormally slow speech rate commonly seen in spastic and hypokinetic dysarthria.