SPEECH - LANGUAGE & LITERACY
Speech & Sound Disorders
Articulation Disorder – This affects children’s speech on a phonetic and motoric level, which means they have trouble saying individual speech sounds, e.g. consonants and vowels. For example, when a child cannot produce the /l/ sound, when he or she should be able to produce it based on the chronological and linguistic ages, and does not show a systematic error pattern (see below for phonological disorder), one can then assume that it is an articulation disorder.
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Phonological Disorder – This disorder occurs at the phonemic/linguistic/cognitive levels (a level higher than the phonetic/motoric aspects of speech production. Children with a phonological disorder show systematic patterns with their speech production errors, e.g. consistently delete /m/ in initial sounds, by saying “at” for “mat” or “ad” for “mad” for CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, when the age error is unexpected for the child’s chronological and linguistic ages.
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A phonological disorder is a language disorder, a deficit in learning the rules of a language. Specifically, a phonological disorder is an impairment in the statistical learning of the rule-governed system of phonemes and phonemes patterns that exist within spoken, meaningful words of a language. Often, not always, individuals with an oral language disorder at the level of phonology have impairments at other levels of the language system as well: morphology, syntax, semantics. In notable contrast, an articulation (speech production) disorder does not typically impact areas of language development.
Language
Even before children learn to talk, they understand a lot more than what they can speak. As they continue to develop their communication and language skills, they begin to put their thoughts and feelings into words. But in some cases, a child may find it difficult to find the words to express themselves and have trouble speaking with others.
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One of the ways that children express themselves is through narratives. Acquiring narrative skills is crucial as young children begin to expand their use of language and communication by retelling or describing stories, experiences, or past events. Narrative development is directly correlated with a child’s success in school and academic achievement.
Narrative Development in Children
According to research, narrative development can play a significant role in determining a child’s later success in school and literacy. This is because narration and relaying a previous experience allows the child to communicate and use language beyond the present context or the “here and now.” This determines the child’s grasp of linguistic structure and words chosen. But what exactly is narrative development? And how do you know your child’s progress is appropriate for his or her age?
A child’s narrative skills refer to his or her ability to use language in telling or communicating a story. As children develop their narrative skills, they learn to follow the rules of story-telling. This involves sequencing of events, organization, introducing characters, establishing the plot or main idea, and taking perspectives. By listening to stories and being exposed to story-telling, children begin to understand and develop narrative structure. In most cases, children with a language disorder struggle with comprehending and executing narratives.
Phonological Awareness
Phonological Awareness refers to the ability to think about and be aware of the sound structures in spoken words, (such as syllables and rhymes) to individual phonemes and is a necessary component of early reading and spelling development.
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Why Reading Comprehension is Crucial for Students
As your child moves up through the grades, their class work relies increasingly on supplemental reading materials for content areas in addition to explicit teaching and lecturing. Good reading comprehension skills is what it is all about. A student with good comprehension skills can:
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Process and understand events, dialogue, ideas, and information
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Relate new information to previous knowledge or what they already know
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Adjust current knowledge in relation to new ideas or information and look at ideas in different ways or standpoints
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Identify and recall key points in a story or other reading material
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Understand hidden or underlying meanings