SLHS 204: Introduction to Communication Disorders

Vocabulary flashcards generated from the introductory speech, language, and hearing sciences lecture notes covering fundamental concepts, components of language and speech, nonverbal communication, and types of communication disorders.

Communication

Any means by which individuals relate their wants, needs, thoughts, feelings, and knowledge to another person.

Impairment

Biological or physiological condition that involves the loss of physical, social, or cognitive functioning.

Disability

A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity, as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).

Handicap

Social disadvantage the individual with an impairment or disability experiences.

Cultural competence

Understanding, appreciating, and responding appropriately to a full range of diversity dimensions.

Cultural humility

Recognizing that learning and self-reflection are lifelong, that power imbalances exist and must be addressed, and that institutions must be accountable.

Language

A socially shared code used to represent concepts through arbitrary symbols combined in rule-governed ways.

Grammar

The rules of a language.

Phonology

The sound system of a language; English has about 43 phonemes.

Phonotactic rules

Rules specifying how sounds may be arranged in a language.

Phoneme

The shortest arbitrary unit of sound in a language that can be recognized as being distinct from other sounds and differentiates meaning.

Morphology

The structure of words.

Morphemes

Smallest grammatical units in a language.

Free morphemes

Morphemes that may stand alone as a word.

Bound morphemes

Morphemes that must be attached to free morphemes and change the meaning of words.

Syntax

How words are arranged in a sentence.

Semantics

The study of the meaning of language.

Pragmatics

The study of the purpose of language.

Speech

The process of producing the acoustic representation of language.

Articulation

The way speech sounds are formed.

Prosody

The rate and rhythm of speech.

Fluency

The smooth, forward flow of communication.

Rate

The speed at which we talk.

Pitch

The listener's perception of how high or low a sound is (frequency).

Habitual pitch

The basic tone an individual mostly uses.

Intonation

Pitch movement within an utterance.

Artifacts

Nonverbal aspects of communication that include the way you look, your clothes, and your possessions.

Proxemics

The study of physical distance between people as it affects communication.

Kinesics

The way we move our body, or body language, which includes gestures and facial expressions.

Tactiles

Touching behaviors in nonverbal communication.

Augmentative/alternative communication systems

Systems used to compensate and facilitate for impaired communication using different methods.

Communication disorder

Impairment in the ability to receive, send, and process and comprehend concepts or verbal, nonverbal, and graphic information.

Etiology

The cause or origin of a problem.

Congenital

A condition present at birth.

Acquired

A condition resulting from illness, accident, or environmental circumstances later in life.

Dialects

Language differences that reflect regional, social, cultural, or ethnic identity, which are not impairments.

Dysarthria

Speech sound impairment caused by paralysis, weakness, or poor coordination of speech musculature.

Apraxia of speech

Speech sound impairment due to neuromotor programming difficulties.

Developmental disfluency

Speech disfluency common to young children, such as repeating words, false starts, and revising utterances.

Developmental stuttering

Disfluency with onset around 2.5-6 y.o. accompanied by tension/effort, including sound prolongations, blocks, and sound/syllable repetitions.

Neurogenic stuttering

Adult onset of disfluency.

Cluttering

Speech disorder characterized by a faster speech rate and unorganized speech.

Vocal abuse

Excessive yelling, screaming, or loud singing that can result in hoarseness or other voice disorders.

Phonological disorder

A disorder of language form characterized by errors in sound use.

Morphological disorder

A disorder of language form involving incorrect usage of markers such as past tense or plurals.

Syntactic disorder

A disorder of language form involving incorrect word order and run-on sentences.

Deafness

Condition where the ability to perceive sound is so limited that the auditory channel is not the primary sensory input for communication.

Hard of Hearing

Condition where individuals depend primarily on audition for communication.

Conductive hearing loss

Hearing loss caused by damage to the outer or middle ear.

Sensorineural hearing loss

Hearing loss caused by problems with the inner ear and/or auditory nerve.

Central Auditory Processing Disorders

Deficits in processing information from audible signals despite potentially having normal hearing.

Prevalence

The number or percentage of people within a population who have a disorder at a point in time.

Incidence

The number of new cases of a disorder within a specified time period.