Speech and language disorders are relatively common in preschool and school children. However, their consequences may worsen once they enter the education system. The child is now in a new, fully oralized and demanding environment.
Language or speech difficulties have negative effects on children. We could talk about 3 main aspects.
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In the child's communication with teachers and peers.
Those children whose difficulties make them unintelligible . That is, they will not be able to effectively communicate their feelings and needs to their teachers, peers or any listener outside their home.
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In the child's learning.
Language alterations in children have negative consequences on academic performance. Mastery of both expressive and comprehensive language is fundamental to the learning process. Aspects such as literacy, reading comprehension, familiar vocabulary, new vocabulary and amplification of concepts need language. If the student has deficiencies in these aspects he will have other difficulties. We may encounter problems in withholding information and understanding read and written information. Children with language impairments usually have impaired hearing skills, such as discrimination and auditory retention of information. This makes the results in subjects based on teaching methodologies such as dictation deficient.
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In the psychological and emotional development of the child.
The child who does not receive the right therapy at the right time drags these problems along through his school years. These become more and more critical as academic demands increase. The end result is a discouraged student with low academic performance and low self-esteem. Also many of these children are excluded by their peers because of their difficulty in communicating.
This is why children who have failed to develop age-appropriate verbal skills will need additional encouragement. In this sense, language therapists, whether in schools or in private practice, can provide specialized intervention to support the student until necessary.
Ask about our support services in both Speech and Occupational Therapy. We're in Guadalupe, San José.
Rocío Vargas Moya