Intro to Communication Sciences and Disorders

Communication:

• Sharing information between two people

• Process in which a message is sent and received

What are some ways we communicate?

• Speech, writing, art, music, braille, morse code, dance, gestures, facial expression, vocal inflection (changes in tones/emotion), body language, clothes (personality, confidence), hairstyles

Why do we communicate?

• To request things (young children)

• Reject things (like toddlers)

• Comment on things (in adulthood)

  • Communicative confidence: to communicate for a variety of reasons

4 Processes of Communication:

• Formulation

• Transmission

• Reception

• Comprehension

• Formulation:

  •  “Getting your thoughts together”

  • Ex: you want to break up with your partner

• Transmission

  • The actual process of sending the message

  • Breaking up by texting, face-to-face

  • What modality will I use?

    • Speech, gestures, 

• Reception

  • Receiving the message that was sent by the sender

• Comprehension

  • Understanding the message that was received

  • The way you comprehend the message determines

Types of Feedback

• Giving info back to the sender 

• Feedback makes communication active and dynamic

3 Types of Feedback:

• Linguistic-verbal

  • “Mmm hmm”

  • “Huh?”

  • “Cool”

  • “Shut up!”

• Non-linguistic/Extra-linguistic-nonverbal 

  • Nodding

  • Eye contact (appropriate)

  • Smiling

  • Can occur as a compliment to linguistics or by itself

• Paralinguistic-voice characteristics

  • Sarcasm

  • Changes in pitch (when you're upset)

  • Used with linguistic feedback

• Other communication components 

• 4 components of effective communicators (maxims)

  • Quality (accuracy), quantity (saying enough to communicate the message–depends on context), relevance (your response has to contribute to the topic), manner

• Language 

  • A universal, rule-governed code of symbols used to represent specific symbols in communication for social use 

  • Fits under the umbrella of communication

  • With 4 key components

    • Socially shared

    • Is coded

    • Rule governed

    • Representational tool

  • A cognitive process 

  • When a person has cognitive problems, they will have some language problems

  • Othe species communicate- but only humans have language describe by the 4 components

• Language domains

  • 3 domain model:

    • Form

      • Syntax: Word order

      • The baby happy was smiling

    • Morphology

      • Internal organization of words–changing the tense of the word

      • The flopsy will wimble the snobbit

    • Phonology

      • Speech sounds (phonemes)

      • “C-a-t” made 3 separate phones

    • Content

      • Semantics: Meaning (vocabulary)

    • Use

      • Pragmatics: the ability to use language appropriately in social situations

        • Start to develop around 3 or 4 years

        • Pragmatics is the most important of those components

        • Pragmatics consist of:

        • Communicative functions (why we communicate)

        • Social convention (knowing what is appropriate to say in different situations)

        • Discourse (holding an appropriate conversation)

Speech

• Is ONE way we communicate (verbal)

• Neuromuscular process

  • Moving our jaws, tongue, lips

• When we use language orally, we do it through speech

• 3 systems that activate to make speech possible

  • Respiration 

  • Phonation

  • Articulation 

• Respiration 

  • Primary biological function:

    • Exchanging gasses

  • Secondary bio function

    • Speech

    • Begins on an oral air stream

    • Airstream needs to be smooth and consistent for fluent speech

Phonation

• Primary bio functions

  • Prevent things from going into the airway

  • The vocal folds close when we swallow

• Secondary bio function:

  • Producing sound for speech

  • The vocal folds APPROXIMATE for speech

  • Air rushes through the narrow opening causing them to vibrate 

Articulation 

• Primary bio function:

  • Chewing and preparation of food swallowing 

• Secondary bio function:

  • Turning phonation into speech sounds

  • Everything involved in chewing is involved in speech sounds

Language vs speech

• Language does not need speech in order to be meaningful

• Speech does need language in order to be meaningful 

  • speech>langauge>meaning

Hearing 

• Most common disorder

• Part of communication

• The perception of sound

Speech perception 

• The human brain is uniquely tuned to speech

  • We hear other sounds, but our brains naturally focus on speech sounds

Communication Disorders

• Significant difficulty in 

  • Formulating (thoughts)

    • Stroke

  • Transmission (getting it out)

    • Cerebral palsy

  • Receiving

    • Deafness 

  • Comprehending (understanding)

    • Autism

• Significant difficulty =must affect a person's function in home, work/school or community environments(s)

Culture 

• Values, beliefs, and customs shared by a group of individuals

  • Group (community) could be racial, ethnic, gender identity, etc

  • There’s a difference between knowing what something is vs what it’s called

• Culture has a profound impact on a person’s communication

  • “Sugar”

  • “Cousin”

  • “Cut”

• There are many dialectical differences in the US (regional as well as racial/ethnic)

  • Main stream american dialect is a parent to sub dialects

• Difference does NOT mean disorder

• Density: the amount of features you use in your dialect

• Everyone speaks a dialect of English, NO ONE speaks MAE

• Accents 

  • Pronunciation aspects of dialect; what you hear

Difference vs disorder

• You must situate a person based on their culture

Types of communication disorders

• Language 

  • Childhood  language disorders 

  • Adult language disorders (aphasia)

  • Reading disabilities

Language disorders 

• Childhood language disorders

  • Problems occur due to issues with form, content, or use

  • Acquired disorders 

  • Developmental disorders (at birth or before) such as autism are present at birth

    • Habilitation: teaching a skill they never had

    • Rehabilitation: teaching a skill they lost

  • Adult language disorders

    • Aphasia-language disorder in adults that results from neurological damage to the language areas of the brain

    • Reading disabilities 

      • Reading skills are significantly impaired

      • Dyslexia is the most common type
        
        

Speech Disorders

• articulation/phonological disorders

  • Distortions, substitution, and omissions of speech sounds

  • Only a disorder if it's not age-appropriate

  • Results from structural problems or misplacement of articulators

  • Articulation: random sounds you can’t make

  • Phonological: a certain pattern of errors

• Fluency disorders

  • High rates in the continuity of spoken language

    • Increased rate, prolongations, blocks

    • Secondary behaviors–blink, leg taps

• Voice disorders 

  • Difficulty in communication due to the voice

  • Aphonia (no voice)

    • Caused by nerve damage or psycho genic issues

  • Dysphonia (raspy, hoarse sounding voice)

    • Results from vocal misuse (yelling, singing, inappropriately) causes nodules

• Motor speech disorders

  • Ommissions, distortions, and substitution of speech sounds due to neurological causes

  • Apraxia: motor planning disorder, when the brain tries to tell the tongue to do something they can’t

  • Dysarthria: actual nerve damage to the articulator

  • Foreign accent syndrome: When a person suddenly develops a certain accent

    • Not related to any experiences they had

    • Related to central nervous system damage

    • treatment accent reduction therapy and counseling

Hearing disorders

• Sensorineural hearing disorders

  • Hearing loss that results from damage to the inner ear (hair cells) or the auditory nerve

  • Cannot be reversed

• Conductive hearing disorders

  • Hearing loss that results from problems with the middle ear (ear infection) or the outer ear (malformations)

  • Can be reversed

• Auditory processing disorders

  • Problems processing speech sounds by the brain

Feeding and Swallowing

• Pediatric

  • Problems with feeding and swallowing are often associated with:

    • Being premature

    • Cleft palate/lip

    • Cerebral palsy

• Adult 

  • Dysphagia: a swallowing disorder

  • Associated with neurological problems caused by stroke, TBI, or dementia

  • Can cause choking or pneumonia 

Speech-language pathologists

• Assess, treat, and research disorders of communication

• Many certified in the US