Basic Speech Terms

Phonology

The study of speech sounds or phoneme systems of a language including the rules of combining and using phonemes

Morphology

The study of the rules that govern how morphemes, the minimal and meaningful units of language, are used in a language

Syntax

The rules that pertain to the ways that words can be used to be combined to form sentences in a language

Semantics

The meaning of words and combinations of words in a language

Pragmatics

The rules associated with the use of language in conversation and broader social situation

Specific Language Impairment

When children demonstrate difficulties with form, content, and use of language in the absence of a known syndrome or neurological disorder (e.g. hearing impairment, autism, down syndrome, cognitive impairment)

Slow Expressive Language Development (SELD)

A term used for children who appear to have a language delay

Mental age

The age at which a child functions on cognitive, intellectual tasks that is intellectual level measured by intelligence test

Language Age

The age of the child based on their language development

Cognitive Referencing

The belief that if a child’s intelligence quotient is low and their language skills are low, they will not be able to demonstrate progress through language therapy

Chronological Age referencing

A language impairment is defined as clinically significant from what is expected for children of the child’s own chronological age

Social standard

This is considered the impact of a language impairment on a child’s educational and social success

Verb Tense Morphology

The ability to manipulate morphemes that change the meaning of a words such as (call, calls, called)

Non-word repetition

This contain consonants that are not developmentally appropriate for a 2-3 year old to produce

Dynamic assessment

One way to determine if a child has a learning impairment by assessing how easily and quickly they can learn a linguistic skill

Articulation

* The motor processes involved in speech planning and execution


* Specific type of motor learning
* involvement of peripheral motor processes, not central linguistic processes

Articulation Disorder

Difficulty with the motor aspects of speech and the inability to produce certain speech sounds

Phonetics

The study of speech sounds, especially the description and classification of speech sounds according to their production, transmissions, and perceptual features

Speech sounds

Group of allophones / allophonic variations

Acoustic phonetics

The categorization and classification of speech sounds based on frequency, intensity, and duration of speech sounds

Articulatory phonetics

The categorization and classification of speech sounds based on place, manner, and voicing

Phonotactics

The description of the allowed combination(s) of phonemes in a particular language (e.g. CCCVCCC)

Phonological Disorder

* Impaired system of phonemes and phoneme patterns within the context of spoken language
* More central deficiency: improper use of phonemes to signify linguistic meaning
* Neurolinguistic dysfunction at the phonological level

Phonetic Inventory

* Speech Sounds produced
* Repertoire of speech sounds for a particular client, including allophones
* Emphasis on forms produced

Allophones

Any of the various phonetic realizations of a __phoneme__ in a language, which do not contribute to distinctions of meaning. For example, in English an aspirated *p* (as in *pin* ) and __unaspirated__ *p* (as in *spin* ) are allophones of the phoneme /p/

Phonemic Inventory

Phonemes produced consistently and contrastively (phonemes produced correctly at least once)

Substitution

Standard speech sounds is replaced by another standard speech sound

Omission

Speech sound is omitted

Distortion

Standard speech sound is replaced by a nonstandard speech sound

Addition

A sound or syllable is added

Salience factor

A child actively selects words with sounds important or remarkable to him or her

Avoidance factor

A child avoids words containing sounds not in his or her inventory

Preferences

Certain sounds, syllable structure, sounds classes and features

Auditory phonetics

How sounds are perceived

Sonorants

Highly resonant sounds that demonstrate at least two format areas (thus more intense/louder)

Cognates

Pairs of similar sounds differing only in the voicing feature (e.g. \[t\] and \[d\])

Sonorant Consonants

Produced with relatively open expiratory passageway / less obstruction of the airstream (e.g. nasals, liquids, and glides)

Obstruents

The complete or narrow constriction between the articulators hindering the expiratory airstream

Rising diphthongs

Common diphthongs in General American English where the tongue moves from a lower onglide to a higher offglide (tongue moves in a rising motion)

Centering Diphthongs

the offglide is a central vowel

Active articulator

* Also known as organ of articulation
* Parts of the vocal tract that actually move to achieve articulation
* Lower lip, tips of tongue, surface of the tongue

Passive articulator

* Also known as place of articulation
* Denotes the area within the vocal tract that remains motionless during articulation
* Lip/labial, teeth/dental, alveolar ridge/alveolar, hard palate/palatal, soft palate/velum

Manner of articulation

* The type of construction that the active and passive articulators produce
* Stop/plosives, fricatives, nasals, affricates, glides/approximants, laterals/liquids, rhotics/retroflexed

Voicing features

Denotes the presence of absence of simultaneous vibration of the vocal folds

Coarticulation

The concept that the articulators are continually moving into position for other segments over a stretch of speech

Assimilation

* Refers to adaptive articulatory change by which one speech sound becomes similar, sometimes identical, to a neighboring sound segment
* Can affect one, several, or all of a sounds phonetic constituents (articulators, manner, and voicing)

Phonemic Assimilation

If an altered segment is perceived to be a different phoneme altogether

Phonetic similitude

Occurs when the change in the segment is such that it is still perceived by speakers of a language as nothing more than a variation of the original segment

Peak

* The most prominent acoustically most intense part of the syllable
* May stand alone in the first syllable (ex: “a-way”)
* Vowels are more prevalent
* Consonants that are the syllable peak are called syllabics

Onset

* Consists of all the segments prior to the peak
* Segments composing of the onset - syllable releasing sounds

Coda

* Made up of all the sound segments of a syllable following its peak
* Segments composing the code - syllable arresting

Rhyme

* The peak and coda together
* “sun” the onset is “s” and the rhyme is “un”

Open / Unchecked Syllables

Syllables that do not contain codas (ex. “do” or “glee”)

Closed / Checked Syllables

Syllables that do have codas (ex. “stop”)

Atomic constituents

Units that cannot be broken down anything further

Distinctive features

Considered to be universal properties of speech segments

Phonological rules

These rules govern how this phonological representation is used to demonstrate relationships between phonological and phonetic forms

Cluster Reduction

The simplification of consonant clusters into a single consonant (ex. \[pun\] for spoon)

Reduplication

The syllable structure that is simplified; the second syllable becomes a repetition of the first (ex. \[wawa\] for water)

Weak syllable deletion

Omission of the unstressed syllable (nana for banana)

Final Consonant Deletion

Omission of a syllable-arresting consonant

Fronting

Place of articulation is more anteriorly location than the intended sound

Labilaization

Replacement of non-labial sound by a labial one

Alveolarization

Change of nonalveolar sounds into alveolar sounds

Stopping

Substitute stops for fricatives

Affrication

Replacement of fricatives by homorganic affricates

Communication

The process that consists of two or more people sharing information including facts, thoughts, ideas, and feelings.

Speech

The expression of thoughts in spoken words

Articulation

The motor production of speech sounds

Fluency

The flow of speaking, including rate and rhythm

Voice

Includes vocal quality, pitch, loudness, and resonance

Language

A complex and dynamic system of conventional symbols that is used in various modes for thought and communication

Communication disorder

The impairment in the ability to receive, send, process, and comprehend concepts, including verbal, nonverbal and graphic symbol systems

Speech disorder

Used to indicate oral, verbal communication that is so deviant from the norm that it is noticeable or interferes with communication

Language disorder

Involves the impaired comprehension and / or use of spoken, written, and / or other symbol systems

Hearing impairment

Impaired auditory sensitivity

Central Auditory processing disorder

Difficulties with the information processing of auditory signals that are not related to impaired sensitivity of the auditory system

Prenatal

Before the child is born

Perinatal

Around the birth of the child

Post natal

after the child was born

Spastic Cerebral Palsy

•Too much muscle tone or tightness.

•Movements are stiff, especially in the legs, arms, and/or back.

•move their legs awkwardly, turning in or scissoring their legs as they try to walk.

•This form of CP occurs in 50-75% of all cases.

Athetoid Cerebral Palsy

•Affect movements of the entire body.

•Involves slow, uncontrolled body movements and low muscle tone that makes it hard for the person to sit straight and walk.

•This form occurs in 10-20% of all cases.

Ataxic Cerebral Palsy

•involves poor coordination, balance, and depth perception

•occurs in approximately 5-10% of all cases.

Mixed Cerebral Palsy

* Combination of other cerebral palsy
* Has both high and low muscle tone

Muscular Dystrophy

Weakness and wasting of muscles

Stuttering

A communication disorder in which the flow of speech is broken by repetitions, prolongations, and abnormal stoppages of sounds and syllables

Form

Refers to the structure of language

Content

Refers to the meaning of language

Use

Refers to the ways speakers use language in different situational contexts

Intellectual Disability

A disability that affects the acquisition of knowledge and skills

Specific auditory perceptual skill

Refers to the client’s ability to differentiate between their error production and the target sound

Dysarthria

A motor speech disorder caused by paresis, paralysis, or incoordination of speech muscles as a result of central and / or peripheral nervous system damage that may affect respiration, phonation, resonation, resonation, articulation, and prosody.

Dysgraphia

A developmental motor and / or literacy disorder that affects a child’s or adult’s ability to write, characterized by messy or illegible handwriting, misspellings, and difficulty with grammar and organizing sentences

Agraphia

The loss of the ability to write resulting from an injury to the brain

Dysphagia

Swallowing disorder

Dysphonia

A general term that means a voice disorder

Dysprosody

Impairment of prosody that affects and individual’s intonation, pauses, stress, intensity, and rhythm and melody of speech that is usually attributed with neurological damage

Dystonia

A general neurological term for a variety of problems characterized by excessive contraction of muscles with associated abnormal movements and postures

Apraxia

A deficit in the neural motor planning or programming of the articulatory muscles for voluntary movements for speech that primarily affects articulation and prosody

Aspiration

A term in reference to a material penetrating the larynx and entering the airway below the vocal folds