Introduction to Communication Sciences and Disorders (CDIS 1230)

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering CDIS 1230 lecture modules: Speech, Language, Hearing, Swallowing/Dysphagia, AAC, Disability, Diversity, and Professional Roles in Communication Sciences and Disorders.

Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP)

A professional who works to prevent, screen, assess, and treat speech, language, social communication, and swallowing disorders in children and adults.

Audiologist

A healthcare professional who provides patient-centered care in the prevention, identification, diagnosis, and evidence-based treatment of hearing, balance, and other auditory disorders for people of all ages.

Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP)

The professional credential requiring a master's or doctoral degree, passing score on the national Praxis Exam, and completion of a Clinical Fellowship Year (CF) with $1,260$ clinical hours supervised by an ASHA-certified SLP.

Speech-Language Pathology Assistant (SLPA)

A support professional requiring a bachelor's degree in CSD who administers speech-language tests and therapy under the direction of an SLP, but cannot diagnose disorders or provide independent therapy.

Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology (CCC-A)

The clinical credential requiring a Clinical Doctorate (AuD) and completion of $1,820$ clinical hours supervised by an ASHA-certified audiologist.

Communication

The active process of exchanging information and ideas between two or more individuals, involving both understanding (reception/comprehension) and expression (formulation/transmission).

Communication Chain

The complete communication process involving a sender who formulates and transmits a message, a shared means, and a receiver who receives, comprehends, and provides feedback.

Communication Disorder

An impairment in the ability to receive, send, process, and comprehend concepts or verbal, nonverbal, and graphic symbol systems, which may be developmental or acquired.

Nonverbal Communication

The conveyance of information without spoken words or alongside speech through body language, facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, and proxemics, accounting for an estimated two-thirds of communicative meaning.

Developmental Delay

A condition in which a child develops a skill later than expected, with some children eventually catching up while others continue to experience difficulties.

Developmental Disorder

A condition characterized by persistent difficulty acquiring or using a skill, where the trajectory of development differs fundamentally from the expected typical pattern.

Late Language Emergence (LLE)

A delay in language onset in toddlers with no other diagnosed disabilities or developmental delays in cognitive or motor domains.

Language

A complex, dynamic, and socially shared code or rule-governed system of arbitrary symbols used in various modes to represent concepts for thought and communication.

Linguistic Competence

An individual's underlying, internalized knowledge of the rules and grammar of a language.

Linguistic Performance

The actual usage and real-time verbal expression of language in everyday listening and speaking situations.

Phonology

The linguistic subsystem that governs the sound system of a language and the specific rules for combining speech sounds.

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound in a language capable of signaling a difference in meaning; English consists of approximately $44$ distinct phonemes.

Morphology

The linguistic subsystem that governs the internal structure and formation of words.

Morpheme

The smallest meaningful unit of language, categorized into free morphemes (can stand alone as words) and bound morphemes (must attach to other morphemes).

Syntax

The linguistic rules specifying how words are sequenced and arranged into acceptable, grammatical phrases and sentences.

Syntactic Ambiguity

The presence of two or more possible meanings within a single sentence or sequence of words due to sentence structure (e.g., 'The chicken is ready to eat').

Semantics

The linguistic subsystem governing the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences, allowing listeners to differentiate sense from nonsense.

Fast Mapping

A process through which young children quickly hypothesize and learn the meaning of a new word after only a brief initial exposure.

Pragmatics

The linguistic domain governing the social use of language and communicative rules within situational, cultural, and conversational contexts.

Metalinguistic Skills

The cognitive ability to think about, analyze, and talk about language as an object of conscious evaluation.

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)

A persistent language impairment that occurs in the absence of an obvious biomedical etiology, anatomical abnormality, physical deficit, or intellectual disability.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

A neurodevelopmental condition characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction, along with restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities.

Dyslexia

A specific learning disability characterized by neurobiological difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and poor spelling abilities.

Aphasia

An acquired neurogenic language impairment caused by damage to the localized language centers of the brain (predominantly in the left hemisphere), most frequently following a stroke.

Wernicke's Aphasia

A type of fluent aphasia resulting from lesions in posterior left hemisphere regions, characterized by effortless, rapid speech with little pausing, but significantly impaired auditory comprehension and paraphasic errors.

Broca's Aphasia

A type of nonfluent aphasia resulting from anterior left frontal lobe damage, characterized by short, effortful, agrammatic utterances and articulatory struggle with relatively preserved comprehension.

Dementia

An umbrella term for progressive syndromes causing acquired global decline in memory and at least one other cognitive domain sufficient to interfere with daily functional activities.

Speech

The acoustic representation or physical mode of producing the sounds and words of language through respiratory, phonatory, and articulatory mechanisms.

Respiratory System (Speech Function)

The biological organ system that supplies oxygen and removes carbon dioxide, while secondarily acting as the driving power source (airflow) for speech sound production.

Larynx

The cartilaginous structure (voice box) whose primary biological function is airway protection during swallowing and whose secondary function is sound production (phonation).

Abduction vs. Adduction (Vocal Folds)

Abduction refers to vocal folds moving apart (open position for respiration); adduction refers to vocal folds coming together along the midline (closed position for phonation and airway protection).

Vocal Tract

The resonating cavities of the upper airway extending from the opening of the mouth and nasal apertures down to the vocal folds, comprising the oral, nasal, and pharyngeal cavities.

Active Articulators

Movable anatomical structures within the vocal tract that change position to shape speech sounds, including the tongue, lips, mandible (jaw), and soft palate (velum).

Passive Articulators

Non-moving or relatively stationary anatomical landmarks against which active articulators make contact or constriction, including the upper teeth, alveolar ridge, and hard palate.

Speech Sound Disorders (SSDs)

Any clinical difficulty or combination of difficulties with speech sound perception, motor production, or phonological mental representation.

Speech Intelligibility

A perceptual measure of the ease and extent to which an individual's acoustic speech output is understood by an interlocutor.

Dysarthria

A motor speech execution disorder caused by underlying neuromuscular damage resulting in muscle weakness, flaccidity, spasticity, or discoordination.

Apraxia of Speech (AOS)

A neurogenic speech disorder impairing the capacity to program and sequence sensorimotor commands for the positioning and movement of articulators in the absence of muscular weakness or paralysis.

Cleft Lip

A congenital structural malformation where an opening or separation persists in the upper lip because tissues fail to fuse completely during embryological development.

Cleft Palate

A congenital physical split or opening in the hard or soft palate occurring when the palatal shelves fail to fuse normally during embryonic development before birth.

Vocal Pitch

The perceptual correlate of acoustic fundamental frequency ($F_0$), determined primarily by the physical length, mass, and tension of the vibrating vocal folds.

Voice Disorder

Any deviation in vocal quality, pitch, loudness, or vocal effort that fails to meet an individual's communicative needs or is perceived as atypical, categorized into organic, functional, or psychogenic etiologies.

Speech Fluency

The effortless, forward-flowing continuity, smooth transitions, and appropriate rhythm and speech rate during spoken output.

Stuttering

The most common speech fluency disorder, characterized by involuntary core disruptions such as part-word/sound repetitions, sound prolongations, and postural blocks.

Secondary Stuttering Behaviors

Learned reactions to disfluency, subdivided into escape behaviors (actions like eye blinking, jaw tension, or head nodding that accompany stuttering moments) and avoidance behaviors (substitutions, fillers, or situational avoidance used beforehand to conceal stuttering).

Prosody

The melody, stress, rhythm, and intonational structure of spoken language conveyed through dynamic changes in vocal pitch, loudness, and duration.

Affective Prosody

The modulation of pitch, loudness, and rate to communicate emotional states such as anger, sadness, or excitement.

Pinna

The outer ear cartilaginous flap (auricle) that gathers acoustic sound waves and funnels them directly into the external auditory canal while naturally boosting specific frequencies.

External Auditory Meatus

The roughly $1\text{-inch}$ long, S-shaped canal extending from the pinna to the tympanic membrane that protects the eardrum with cerumen and acoustically boosts high-frequency signals.

Tympanic Membrane

The thin, semi-translucent fibrous membrane (eardrum) separating the outer ear from the middle ear cavity that vibrates in direct response to incident sound waves.

Eustachian Tube

The anatomical channel running between the middle ear cavity and the nasopharynx that intermittently opens to ventilate the space and equalize air pressure across the tympanic membrane.

Ossicular Chain

The set of the three smallest bones in the human body (malleus, incus, and stapes) that mechanically transfers vibrations from the tympanic membrane to the oval window of the inner ear.

Cochlea

The pea-sized, snail-shaped fluid-filled osseous structure of the inner ear housing hair cells that transduce mechanical fluid vibrations into electrochemical neural impulses.

Decibel ($dB$)

A logarithmic unit of measurement utilized in acoustics and audiology to quantify the intensity or physical sound pressure level of an auditory signal.

Hertz ($Hz$)

The standard physical unit of frequency equivalent to cycles per second, perceived psychologically by the human ear as acoustic pitch.

Conductive Hearing Loss

An impairment in sound transmission through the outer or middle ear structures, typically causing a reduction in sound loudness while clarity is preserved; often temporary or medically treatable.

Otitis Media

An inflammatory condition or infectious process within the middle ear space, representing one of the leading causes of conductive hearing loss in pediatric populations.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

An auditory impairment originating from damage to the delicate sensory hair cells of the cochlea, the eighth cranial nerve (CN VIII), or central auditory pathways, typically resulting in permanent loss of both loudness and clarity.

Mixed Hearing Loss

A co-occurring combination of both conductive and sensorineural hearing loss within the same ear.

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD)

A functional auditory deficit characterized by difficulty in how the central nervous system processes sound signals, despite peripheral hearing thresholds falling within typical limits.

Hearing Threshold

The lowest decibel level at which a sound frequency can be reliably detected by a listener at least $50\%$ of the time during an audiometric evaluation.

Pure Tone Audiometry

A behavioral diagnostic test measuring hearing thresholds across standard single-frequency pure tones between $250\text{--}8000\,Hz$.

Audiogram

A standardized clinical graph plotting hearing sensitivity across octave test frequencies in Hertz against hearing threshold levels in decibels, utilizing 'O' for the right ear and 'X' for the left ear.

Otoacoustic Emissions (OAEs)

A nonbehavioral objective test evaluating the physiological response and biomechanical function of the cochlear outer hair cells, commonly used in universal newborn hearing screenings.

Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR)

A nonbehavioral electrophysiological assessment that records electrical activity generated along the auditory nerve (cranial nerve VIII) and brainstem auditory pathways in response to acoustic stimuli.

Hearing Aid

An electroacoustic wearable amplification device composed of a microphone, amplifier, speaker/receiver, battery, and digital processor designed to increase the audibility of acoustic sounds.

Cochlear Implant

A surgically implanted electronic device that bypasses damaged or nonfunctional cochlear hair cells to deliver electrical stimulation directly to the auditory nerve endings.

Medical Model of Disability

A conceptual framework that views disability as an intrinsic physiological or anatomical deficit within an individual requiring medical correction or rehabilitation toward 'normal'.

Social Model of Disability

A conceptual framework defining disability as the consequence of environmental, structural, and attitudinal barriers created by society rather than an inherent personal pathology.

Person-First Language

Linguistic practice placing the individual before their diagnosis or condition (e.g., 'person with a disability' or 'person with autism').

Identity-First Language

Linguistic practice positioning the condition as a core, proud component of identity (e.g., 'disabled person' or 'autistic person').

Ableism

A systemic network of beliefs, attitudes, and discriminatory practices that privileges non-disabled bodily and mental norms while devaluing individuals with disabilities.

Disability Humility

The clinical and personal practice of recognizing limits to one's knowledge, actively learning from disabled communities, and balancing both medical and social models in practice.

Dialect

A systematic, rule-governed linguistic variation of a shared language associated with a particular geographical region, cultural background, or social community, encompassing unique vocabulary, syntax, and pronunciation.

Accent

Distinctive patterns of phonetic and phonological speech production without variations in vocabulary or grammatical rules.

Comprehensibility

A listener-centered subjective judgment of how much effort or difficulty is experienced in understanding an individual's speech output.

Language Transfer

The linguistic influence and carryover of a speaker's primary language (L1) rules, sounds, or grammatical structures into the learning and production of a second language (L2).

Silent Period

A developmentally typical stage during second-language acquisition where a learner demonstrates receptive comprehension of the new language but produces minimal expressive output.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

An umbrella term encompassing all communication methods, external devices, and non-speech symbols used by individuals with severe speech or language impairments.

Augmentative Communication vs. Alternative Communication

Augmentative communication supplements or enhances existing, ineffective speech; alternative communication serves as a replacement when functional speech is absent.

Unaided AAC

Forms of augmentative and alternative communication that rely solely on the human body without external equipment (e.g., manual sign language, gestures, vocalizations).

Aided AAC

Communication systems requiring physical external implements or technological devices, categorized across no-tech/low-tech, mid-tech, and high-tech continuum.

Iconic Symbols

Graphic representations in AAC that exhibit a close perceptual or physical resemblance to the exact referent they represent.

Transparent Symbols

AAC symbols whose visual representation is easily recognized and whose underlying meaning can be accurately deduced without training.

Opaque Symbols

Arbitrary AAC representations whose relationship to their assigned meaning is obscure and cannot be guessed without explicit instruction.

Tangible Symbols

Three-dimensional physical items (real objects, miniature replicas, or textured objects) used in AAC to represent words or concepts.

Static Display (AAC)

A communication display format where symbols remain permanently fixed in set physical locations on a board or page without shifting following a selection.

Dynamic Display (AAC)

An electronic visual screen display that automatically transitions and updates available vocabulary choices upon user selection.

Hybrid Display (AAC)

An AAC arrangement combining fixed physical keyboard or symbol arrays with dynamic, changing electronic screen displays.

Visual Scene Display (VSD)

A visual AAC display format consisting of dynamic photographs or drawings of contextualized real-life scenes with embedded communicative hotspots.

Direct Selection (AAC)

An access method where the user directly points to, touches, or indicates a target item using a finger, pointer, joystick, or eye-gaze tracking.

Indirect Selection / Scanning (AAC)

An access method where an electronic device or communication partner presents choices sequentially until the user activates an adaptive switch or signal to confirm the choice.

Dysphagia

A medical disorder originating from Greek meaning difficulty with eating or swallowing, which can occur across any phase of the deglutition process.

Bolus

A cohesive, chewed mass of food or liquid bound together with saliva that is prepared in the oral cavity for swallowing.

Oral Preparatory Phase

The first phase of swallowing in which food is introduced into the mouth, chewed, mixed with saliva, and shaped into a cohesive bolus while the back of the tongue elevates against the soft palate.