Speech Disorders

Each night on ESPN’s Sportscenter; the NBA (National Basketball Association) games are broken down by Bill Walton. Walton was a three time NCAA Player of the Year, one of the 50 greatest basketball players, a commentator of over 100 NBA games a year, and up until 28 he suffered from one of the worst speech impediments. 7.5 million individuals are currently suffering from speech disorders, in the United States, alone. However, speech disorders is a blanket term which covers a wide spectrum of disorders.

1. Stuttering: This is most common of all speech disorders. The actual action of stuttering is back up of sounds within the mouth, during the attempted production.

2. Cluttering: Clustering is the mash up of several different words at one time. When an individual tries to talk, their mouth can not catch up to their thoughts; so a collection of sounds is expressed.

3. Dysprosody: Out of all the speech disorders; this is the rarest. The fundamental frequency and cadence, of the individual’s voice change rapidly through a normal conversation.

4. Speech & Sound Disorders: Within this specific speech disorder, an individual has a difficulty enunciating, articulating, or even producing certain sounds.

5. Voice Disorders: The actual physical disorder of the organs which produce speech.

6. Dysarthria: This disorder is a weakness in the muscles that produce speech. This disorder is usually the symptom of a stroke or Parkinson’s Disease.

7. Apraxia of Speech: An individual will lose the function of placing the correct sounds, in the correct places.

CLASSIFICATIONS:

1. Sounds That Patients Can Produce: Individuals can produce phonemic (easily produced sounds) and phonetic (produced only upon request

2. Stimulable Sounds: Either an individual can produce sounds voluntarily or after a stimulation.

3. Cannot Produce The Sound: Individuals can not audibly produce sounds voluntarily.