Stammering and Other Conditions

Conditions

Attention and Listening

Attention refers to a child’s ability to focus on a specific task, activity, or person for an extended period of time. Listening refers to a child’s ability to concentrate on what they are hearing while ignoring any other distracting input, like background noise.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

Augmentative and Alternative communication (AAC) refers to a range of approaches and systems that either support or replace spoken language. Individuals will use their AAC in different ways. Some people may be able to use their finger to point/touch the screen.

Autism

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how people communicate and interact. Autisic people may be under or over sensitive to certain textures, lights, noises, smells etc. This might mean that they avoid or have clear preferences for certain places/activities/foods.

Developmental Language Disorder

DLD can affect children across all areas of language and communication e.g. attention and listening, phonology (speech sounds), social interaction, expressive language (using and applying grammatical rules, using words in a logical order in sentences and formulating answers) and receptive language (understanding and processing information).

Difficulties in Understanding (Receptive Language Difficulties)

Receptive language refers to a child’s ability to understand and gain meaning from spoken or written language. Receptive language is often also referred to as “comprehension skills” or “understanding skills”.

Dysphagia

Dysphagia refers to a person’s difficulties with eating, drinking, and swallowing. Swallowing is a complex process which involves transporting food and liquids from the mouth to the stomach while keeping the airway protected.

Expressive Language Difficulties

Expressive language difficulties will impact on a child’s ability to effectively communicate their thoughts, wants and needs. This may lead to reduced confidence to talk and frustration. A difficulty with expressive language skills can also be frustrating for the teachers and parents involved too!

Selective Mutism

Selective Mutism is an anxiety disorder in which a child is fearful to talk in certain situations. A child may be described as ‘chatty’ or a ‘confident talker’ by parents at home but is unable to talk, or in some cases, communicate in other places/situations and demonstrates ‘phobia-like’ behaviours, e.g a frozen expression.

Social Communication Difficulties

Social communication is often referred to as social skills or social interaction. Children may have social communication difficulties because they have diagnosis such as autism or as a result of other speech and/or language difficulties.

Speech Sound Disorder

A Speech Sound Disorder (SSD) describes when a child has difficulties producing speech sounds accurately, or using the right speech sounds in the right places, or combining those speech sounds in a way that leads to natural-sounding speech.

Stammering

Stammering is a neurological condition that impacts the fluency of speech. Stammering is a registered Disability.

Voice Difficulties

Voice difficulties are characterised by the child having a voice that may sound different in quality, loudness or pitch, to those of their friends, brothers and sisters.