Speech/Language Impairment

What is a speech-language impairment according to IDEA?

• A communication disorder that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

• having limited strength, vitality, or alertness, which results in limited alertness in educational environment

• Significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior

• An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.

Answer explanation

The definition of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder means having limited strength, vitality, or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment

The definition of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities is significant subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors is the definition of an Emotional or Behavioral Disorder.

Speech/Language Impairment is a part of the Low-Incidence Disabilities

• True

• False

Answer explanation

It is a part of the High-Incidence Disabilities category.

- Speech or language impairments are the most common disability among schoolchildren.

- Speech or language impairments account for 20% of students ages 3 to 21 with identified disabilities.

- The second-largest special education category is speech or language impairments, behind learning disabilities.

- In 2015, more than 1 million school-age children ages 6 through 21 were identified as having a speech or language impairment.

Which of the following is included in Speech/Language Impairments?

• Articulation

• Fluency and Voice Problems

• Stuttering or Communication Disorders

• All of the above

Speech problems and language impairments do not go hand in hand with learning disabilities.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

Speech problems and language impairments go hand in hand with learning disabilities; in fact, their rate of co-occurrence has been estimated to be 96% (Sunderland, 2004). Students with cognitive disabilities typically face challenges in the area of language development

Speech impairments and language impairments are really two separate but related disabilities.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

- A speech impairment exists when a person’s production of speech sounds is unintelligible, unpleasant, or interferes with communication.

- A language impairment disrupts communication and interferes with an accurate understanding of messages, the intent of communications, and interactions among people.

The three types of speech impairments are...

• SODA: Substitution, Omission, Distortion, and Addition

• Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics

• Articulation, Fluency, and Voice Problems

• Articulation, Pragmatics, and Fluency.

Answer explanation

The three types of speech impairments follow:

1. Articulation problems: The process of producing speech sounds is flawed, and the resulting speech sounds are incorrect.

2. Fluency problems: Hesitations or repetitions interrupt the flow of speech. Stuttering is one type of fluency problem.

3. Voice problems: The voice is unusual in pitch or loudness, given the age and gender of the individual.

- The types of articulation errors are remembered by using the acronym SODA:

Substitution, Omission, Distortion, and Addition.

- Language impairments are not typically broken down into types, but problems with language in terms of the aspect of language where the problem exists are

1. Syntax: The rule system used for all language (oral, written, and sign)

2. Semantics: The intent and meaning of spoken and written statements

3. Pragmatics: The application of language based on the social content