by admin | Jan 20, 2017 | news
Characteristics of Childhood Speech Apraxia
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (AHI) is a type of motor disorder that affects the production of speech. Motor speech disorders are neurological in nature. It means that a child's brain has difficulty coordinating the parts of the body that produce speech. Structures such as the tongue, lips, and lower jaw may be affected.
Researchers believe that deterioration in the speech processing system occurs between phonological coding and the motor execution phase. When children with apraxia try to communicate their ideas to us, they don't do it properly. They struggle to sequence and articulate sounds, syllables and words. This results in difficulty in moving quickly and accurately between sequences of articulatory configurations. These configurations are necessary for the production of continuous and intelligible speech.
Causes of Childhood Speech Apraxia
Children with AHI may also have a disorder in motor sensory areas, such as proprioception. We find an inability to understand the spatial position of the articulatory structures. For the most severely affected children, even initiating speech movement gestures can be difficult. Apraxia is different from other motor speech disorders because it is not caused by muscle weakness, limited range of motion, or paralysis of the muscles.
Apraxia is most often caused by nerve damage due to infection, disease, injury, or trauma. It may also be a secondary feature of other conditions such as genetic, degenerative, metabolic, and even seizure disorders. However, not all children with this type of disorder will have apraxia. There are also cases where the cause of apraxia is unknown and there is no apparent neurological indicator of why a child is exhibiting apraxia in speech.
Manifestations of Childhood Speech Apraxia
AHI is a difficult disorder to identify because of its complexity. Symptoms also vary in severity. However some of its more common features include:
- You're late. This symptom can be shared with many other disorders. However, if your child is considered a "late talker," apraxia may be one reason.
- Articulatory attempts. This is a kind of quest or fighting behavior. Your child tries several times to articulate sounds with his tongue, lips, or lower jaw.
- Inconsistent errors. The child produces different types of errors in the same word when repeating it. Depending on the level of severity, your child may be able to accurately produce the objective statement in context. But, it will be unable to produce the same objective accurately in a different context.
- Automatic speech is better than spontaneous speech. The child's automatic speech and imitated speech will be less affected than spontaneous speech. Has more difficulty with voluntary and self-starting statements compared to learned, automatic, or modeled statements.
- Difficulty in multisyllabic words. Errors increase with the length or complexity of the statements. There is more difficulty in multi-syllabic or phonetically challenging words
- Prosody affected. There is a monotonous speech or emphasis on the wrong syllable or word. Affected speed, time deficit in the duration of sounds and pauses.
- Reduced speech intelligibility. It will be difficult for unknown listeners to understand children with apraxia.
Who can help my child with Apraxia?
If you think your child may be exhibiting symptoms of AHI, it is important to be evaluated by a speech therapist. At Speech Therapist we will be able to provide you with a differential diagnosis. Currently research does not show consistency in which characteristics are most important to support the diagnosis of apraxia of infant speech. It is also unclear which or how many characteristics should be present for diagnosis. Therefore, the speech therapist must be experienced and use her clinical judgment in the diagnosis.
We don't have an easy solution for apraxia, and because it can manifest differently in every child we don't have the same formula for everyone. Rather we offer you a variety of individualized techniques. Treatment outcomes depend on the severity of the child's apraxia, as well as whether there are other associated problems.
Children with Apraxia Del Habla Infantil progress to levels of intelligible speech and effective communication. Many children can become intelligible speakers.
Consistent practice and repetition are important and necessary keys to helping children with apraxia achieve an adequate level of communication, which is why we guarantee a professional and evidence-based approach.
Visit us at our office or contact us at 70928392. We are located in Guadalupe, San José. Remember that neither you nor your child are alone!
Lic Rocío Vargas.
by admin | Feb 8, 2016 | news
We all carry the accent with us. The accent is the pronunciation that those who speak the same language have in common. You can also hear people with foreign accents, people whose native language affects the pronunciation of the new language you want to adopt.
Nowadays, a lot of people move from one country to another, or their work demands that their communication be totally intelligible. The accent often does not allow communication to be as functional as it needs to be. That's why the accent can be modified.
All languages have characteristic sounds and it is by modifying these sounds through pronunciation, tone and rhythm techniques that the effect of accent on speech is reduced and communication skills improved.
Some of the areas in which modification of the accent is important:
- People whose mother tongue is not Spanish
- People who want to reduce a regional or foreign accent in a new country.
- Professionals who have regional or foreign accents and wish to improve their communication skills.
If you want more information ask for our sessions !
by admin | Jul 29, 2014 | news
Many parents are concerned about the implications of exposing children to a bilingual parenting environment. There are many questions about the delays or confusion a child may experience when exposed to two languages at such an early age. Many parents are even discouraged because they are wrongly advised that learning two languages can confuse their children and cause speech delays. It's not like that.
One of the most widespread myths is that a child who learns two languages at the same time becomes confused and uses the two languages without differentiating one from the other. But according to Barbara Zurer Pearson, researcher at the University of Massachusetts expert in bilingualism and author of the book "Raising a Bilingual Child" the baby a few days after birth can already differentiate between one language and another especially if these two languages are very different from each other and in the case of more similar languages the child manages to differentiate them around 6 months of age.
It is important to mention that there is a possibility that when the bilingual child begins to speak he will begin to get his vocabulary from both languages and therefore construct phrases such as "drink milk" but this does not mean that he does not differentiate between the two. Bilingualism experts agree that mixing two languages is transitory and disappears as a child's vocabulary increases in both languages.
It is likely that the myth of language confusion has its basis in fairly old research which claimed that learning two languages at such an early age was counterproductive and thus caused many professionals to erroneously advise parents to avoid bilingualism and continue to do so to this day.
Current research shows that being bilingual has many advantages, such as the ability to think more flexibly. At the semantic level, bilingual children have two or more words for each concept, which translates into more than one way of solving problems. Other studies maintain that children exposed to several languages are more creative and their brain circuits are programmed so that in the future the child is more prepared to learn more languages; they also have a better metalinguistic development that is the ability to understand the structure and components of language, a very important skill for learning. It has also been shown that these children have a greater ability to focus attention when it is needed.
It is true that some bilingual children usually take a little longer than monolingual children, but this is not a general rule and if it were to happen, it would be a temporary delay again.
Numerous researches on bilingualism reveal that the vast majority of bilingual children reach the various stages of language development at approximately the same time as monolingual children.
As all children develop skills at their own pace, specific ages vary from child to child regardless of whether they are spoken in one or two languages. Some children say their first words at one year of age while others say them at one and a half years of age and this is no different in the bilingual child.
This is normal if we can confirm that the child understands passive language, i.e. follows instructions and tries to respond in non-verbal ways to communication in the second language, even if he does not yet use expressive or verbal language.
It is important to stop believing that bilingualism can be harmful to the child's language development. However, if you have doubts about it, it is best to consult a professional. If you want to provide a bilingual education to your child my recommendation is that each parent address him in the language he speaks most since at this age the most important thing is to provide your child with a correct linguistic model. For example, if one parent speaks better English and the other parent speaks better Spanish, then each parent should speak with their child in the language in which he or she speaks best.
Lic. Rocío Vargas
Speech, Language and Voice Therapist.
by admin | Jun 13, 2014 | news
Last May we began care in our new Language Therapist's office located in Guadalupe. After several months of planning we always think about the comfort of our users. We try to create a functional space not only for speech therapy but also for all the services we have integrated this year. In a later post we will introduce you to our new collaborators.
In terms of space, we thought of creating a cozy place for both children and our adult users. For our kids we think of an environment that is not threatening that first time they come with anxiety and distrust. For our adult patients a place where they can relax and enjoy the time they are here.
We are located in Oficentro Centauro, in front of the south side of the Catholic Clinic in Guadalupe Centro. It is a very convenient area where you will also find other health professionals both in the office and in the Catholic Clinic. You will also find safe parking, cafeterias and restaurants, clinical laboratories, gymnasium, pharmacies, etc.. We are very happy to grow! Thanks to all the people who have trusted our work over the last few years. We look forward to seeing you soon!
Rocío Vargas Moya
by admin | Jan 28, 2014 | news
Children must be stimulated in all areas of development, a fundamental area is language. I share some examples of activities you can do at home to encourage proper development and enhance your child's communication skills:
1. Talk to him or her, looking him or her in the eye, and reinforce emotions to encourage the expression of feelings.
2. Encourage a positive communicative environment. A place where turn taking is spoken correctly, clearly and respected. Call things by name, describe their appearance and functionality.
3. When they come out, describe the activities they do. For example, if you go shopping tell your child what you are going to buy, if you go by car describe the landscape, if you are cooking ask your child for help.
4. Encourage the child to communicate even if not verbally. It is important to develop your communicative intention.
5. Tell him stories. If possible with large drawings, plates, sounds, 3D.
6. Encourage symbolic play. With objects that provide opportunities for creativity such as legos, blocks.
7. Encourage role-playing: puppets, casitas, professions, trades. 8. Encourage the use of onomatopoeia games through concrete objects.
9. Listen to songs and repeat them. The children enjoy music very much.
10. Try not to encode or "guess" what the child is trying to communicate with gestures, instead construct the correct statement and try to get the child to reproduce it but without creating pressure.
11. Try not to correct the child when he or she makes a mistake, but instead repeat the phrase in the correct way.
12. Do not try to correct errors in the different sounds of language because each sound is acquired at different ages.
Remember that if you notice a delay in language development contact a specialist, do not try to correct the errors yourself. the earlier the intervention starts the better the prognosis of recovery.
