Breakdown of Speech

The aims of this book are to increase awareness of speech development and skills and to explore some means by which improvements may be achieved when those skills are absent or disrupted. The contents include current thinking from research and recent literature, management techniques particularly designed for students and newly qualified therapists and comments considered helpful to parents, teachers and carers. The book discusses the production of speech and how it works and highlights the relevant genetic and structural deviations from normal development which may lead to the production of disordered speech. It then considers what can go wrong with human neuromusculature and motor planning to prevent the acquisition of intelligible speech and makes reference to types of disorders of fluency in children and discusses current therapies. The text then considers voice disorders in children and clinical management is detailed for this and all other disorders dealt with. Adolescent and adult speech difficulties comprise the remainder of the book. This book is aimed primarily at helping speech therapists and speech therapy students to direct their attention to the non-linguistic aspects of speech and particularly to emphasize the need for physical "readiness" which is necessary to precede the acquisition and development of language.