When talking about speech therapy, the first thing that comes to mind is "sure you don't know how to pronounce rr". And we can even hear such funny expressions as "do you have something on your feet?", "Won't you mean pedagogy?", "Because when I was little I went to the golopeda" and many more. Nothing is further from reality.
As you can see in the video that starts the post, speech therapy is much more than "rr", a sound that many children (and not so children) have trouble making. And it is this false belief that, in many occasions, prevents a multitude of disorders that have nothing to do with verbal communication to be favored thanks to a correct speech therapy intervention.
So what is speech therapy?
The speech therapy (from the Greek logos = word; paideia = education) is:
"the discipline that encompasses the study, prevention, evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of human communication disorders, manifested through pathologies and alterations in voice, speech, language (oral, written and gestural), hearing and orofacial functions, both in children and adults. "
There is currently a wide range of alterations in which the intervention of a speech therapist can help achieve optimal development in areas that are altered. Within the preschool stage, the most frequent problems that we can find and that are treated by speech therapists are:
- Language disorders: language delay, dysphasia, childhood aphasia (congenital or acquired)
- Voice disorders: dysphonia
- Speech disorders: dyslalia, dysarthria, stuttering or dysphemia
- Non-specific language and communication disorders: mutism, laconism or brief and concise expression, regressive language
Do not worry if these names seem strange to you. In later posts we will talk in detail about each of them: definition, symptoms, treatment, recommendations ...
On the other hand, there are a wide variety of disorders that, as we have said, not only have to do with the verbal component of children, such as eating disorders (atypical swallowing, childhood dysphagia) respiratory uncoordination or disorders of the nonverbal communication (lack of communicative intention).
Thus, speech therapy allows us, in addition to stimulating the development of language in children in general, improve the voice, speech or persuasion of people whose main work tool is communication (merchants, teachers, actors, singers , politicians… ). And, in the end, in speech therapy, not everything comes down to moving the tongue in front of a mirror to get to say "dog."
Video | I am a speech therapist in Babies and more | Speech disorders in children, Rotacism: problems pronouncing the "r"
