Speech Therapy Word Salad

Photo Credit: Genesee Valley Speech, Language Hearing

When I attend a meeting with parents after a speech and language evaluation, especially those parents of students being newly evaluated, I see their eyes glaze over with the vast amount of information they are hearing for the first time as we review a detailed and lengthy report.  I can so appreciate their overwhelmed!  Parents are in a room with multiple people, trying to absorb every word and concept said, on guard, and concerned about what they are going to hear, particularly what might be their child’s learning weaknesses. What they DO hear, with our technical terminology may sound to them like word salad.    Just like the experience we have all had when in an important “office”, be that a  physician’s, lawyer’s, accountant’s, or other, when we leave we later think, “What did he/she say about____?” or “What was that called?”  So since this blog is about “what I would love to share”, what I would LOVE to share with my parents is a handy, “pocket size,” concise reference for all that vocabulary we use to frame your child’s communication skill performance, because we really do want to give you a complete picture of your child’s abilities!

Here goes:

Receptive Language:  the ability to listen and understand what is being spoken sometimes called   

               Auditory Processing.

Expressive Language: the ability to use words combined to convey a message.

Grammar:  divided into Syntax , the rules about how phrases and sentences are constructed and Morphology, smallest meaningful unit of language, like words and word endings.

                 Vocabulary the meaning of words, also called Semantics.

Articulation: sound production skills, the ability to say sounds correctly.  Incorrect sounds can be substitutions, omissions, or distortions.  Directly relates to Intelligibility, or the clarity of one’s speech.

Voice: the vocal quality, which can be hoarse, hypernasal, hyponasal, harsh, breathy, or typical.

Fluency: the “smoothness” or “non-smoothness” (dysfluency) of speech, marked by repetition of syllables, words, or phrase, or by prolongation or complete blockage of syllables.  Also called Stuttering.

Pragmatics: the appropriate “use” of language for greeting, protesting, conveying, following rules of conversation, or changing the language based on the audience/listener.  Also called Social Language.

That's it!  Speech -Language Pathology terminology in a nutshell!