SL1001- Week 3 Notes

Communication and Swallowing: Foundations

Sciences Contributing to Communication and Swallowing

  • Linguistics: Study of language nature, structure, and variation.
    • Includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
    • Form (phonology, morphology, syntax), content (semantics), and use (pragmatics) are key domains.
  • Psychology: Science dealing with mental processes and behavior.
    • Covers cognitive, emotional, and social aspects.
    • Developmental psychology focuses on physical, cognitive, and social development across the lifespan.
    • Considers the biological bases of behavior, learning, memory, motivation, emotion, health, cross-cultural, and indigenous psychology.
  • Sociology: Study of human social behavior, origins, organization and development of human society.
    • Cultural frameworks and health care systems are relevant.

Biomedical Sciences

  • Foundational for all speech pathology areas.
  • Includes neurology (CNS and PNS), respiration, phonation, articulatory system, hearing, and swallowing.
Neurology
  • Central Nervous System (CNS): Brain and spinal cord.
  • Peripheral Nervous System (PNS): Nerves connecting the brain and spinal cord to the body.
  • Brain initiates and regulates motor, sensory, and cognitive processes.
    • Brain stem: Conduit between spinal cord, cerebral cortex & cerebellum
    • Cerebellum: Regulates motor functions like coordination, muscle tone, and balance
    • Cerebral cortex: 4 lobes; 2 hemispheres
  • Cranial Nerves: 12 paired nerves for motor and sensory functions of the head and neck.
Respiration, Phonation, and Articulation
  • Power (Respiration): Lungs provide energy.
  • Source (Phonation): Vocal folds convert energy into audible sound.
  • Filter (Resonance and Articulation): Articulators shape sound into intelligible speech.
  • Speaking involves controlling respiration, vocal cords, and mouth/nose parts.
  • Articulators include jaw, teeth, tongue, lips, alveolar ridge, soft palate, and larynx.
Hearing (Audiology)
  • Outer ear funnels sound, causing the tympanic membrane to vibrate.
  • Vibration travels along the ossicular chain.
  • Cochlea converts vibrations into hair cell movements.
  • Auditory nerve carries information to the brain.
  • Types of Hearing Loss:
    • Conductive: Issues in the outer or middle ear.
    • Sensorineural: Dysfunction in the cochlea or vestibulocochlear nerve.
Swallowing Phases
  • Oral phase (voluntary): Chewing and bolus formation.
  • Pharyngeal phase (involuntary): Epiglottis seals larynx, bolus propelled to esophagus.
  • Oesophageal phase (involuntary): Bolus propelled to the stomach.
Biomedical Terminology
  • Pathology: Study of the origin, nature, and course of diseases.
  • Aetiology: Study of the causes of diseases.
  • Concomitant: Occurring together without causal relationship.
  • Contributing: Adds to severity or maintenance of a condition.
  • Consequent: Event following another.
  • Congenital: Present at birth.
  • Developmental: Emerges as a child grows, no obvious cause.
  • Acquired: Occurs after birth, usually due to disease or injury.
Implications for Speech Pathology Practice
  • Assessment: Examine anatomy, physiology, and neural bases.
  • Referrals: To audiologists, GPs, dentists, and medical specialists.
  • Intervention: Determine if addressing the cause or symptom; consider medical and speech pathology interventions.

Physical Sciences

  • Acoustics and Physics:
    • Relationship with the power-source-filter model of speech production.
    • Acoustic phonetics studies speech as a sound wave.