Aphasia: Everything You Need to Know

It refers to a disorder that features difficulty speaking/conversing with others, hence detracting from a wholesome classroom experience for the teacher and student alike. Thankfully, several materials have been made available (and assistive technology is being deployed) to ensure the needs of children with this challenge are met and to aid proper communication.

Some common types of aphasia include:

Global aphasia: This is the most acute type of aphasia. It’s caused by injuries to the brain’s multiple parts that are responsible for processing language. Patients with this condition can understand no or very little spoken language and can only make a few recognizable words. However, they might have fully preserved intellectual and cognitive abilities that aren’t related to speech or language.

Broca’s aphasia: This is also called expressive or non-fluent aphasia. Patients with this condition have partial loss of their language ability. They’ve difficulty speaking fluently, and their speech might be limited to a few words at a time. Their speech is described as effortful or halting as they can only speak a few words at a time. They’re generally able to understand speech well and maintain their reading ability but might have limited writing abilities.

Mixed non-fluent aphasia: Patients with this form of aphasia have effortful and limited speech, similar to those with Broca’s aphasia. However, these patients’ comprehension abilities are more limited compared to patients with Broca’s aphasia. They may be able to read and write, but not more than an elementary school level.

Wernicke’s aphasia: This is also called receptive aphasia or fluent aphasia. It’s referred to as fluent because while the patients have an impaired ability to understand spoken words, they don’t have difficulty producing connected speech. However, what they say might not make lots of sense, and they’ll use irrelevant or nonsense words in their sentences. Often, they don’t realize that they’re using the incorrect words.

Anomic aphasia: People with anomic aphasia are unable to come up with appropriate words for what they want to talk about. They have a grasp of grammar, but they simply can’t find the right words to discuss what they want to. They also have trouble finding the right words when they write.

Primary progressive aphasia: This is a neurological syndrome in which people lose their ability to use language progressively and slowly. While most other types of aphasia are caused by stroke, primary progressive aphasia is caused by neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. The condition progresses as the tissue in the brain’s language centers deteriorates over time.

Articulation Disorder: Everything You Need to Know

Refers to a medical disorder associated with remarkable difficulty in phonating, i.e., making sounds that are needed for daily communication. Usually, an articulation disorder is linked to structural issues of the mouth or motor problems and impacts negatively on communication in class both for students and educators. Nonetheless, there are different methods through which teachers can provide help to students with these articulation disorders to help them achieve success.

There’re five types of articulation disorders. These include:

Organic speech sound disorder: These articulation problems are associated with known impairments or structural abnormalities such as cleft palate or lip, brain injury, or hearing impairment.

Developmental phonological disorder: This refers to difficulties using the right speech patterns. Examples include “dock” for “sock” or “tar” for “car.”

Functional speech disorder: This refers to difficulties in learning to produce specific speech sounds.

Developmental dysarthria: This is a motor speech disorder that involves problems with control and strength of the speech musculature. This condition is typically seen in kids with traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, etc.

Developmental apraxia of speech: This refers to difficulties coordinating and planning tongue, jaw, and lips to produce speech sounds.

The specific causes for developmental apraxia of speech, developmental phonological disorders, and functional speech disorders are unknown. Developmental dysarthria is caused by impaired muscle and nerve function. Some conditions such as hearing impairment, cleft palate, pediatric stroke, tongue-tie, etc., will affect a kid’s clarity of speech.

A kid with an articulation disorder may have one or multiple of the following signs and symptoms:

Deletions or omissions: Certain sounds aren’t produced but deleted or omitted. Examples include “soon” for “spoon” and “boo” for “book.”

Additions: One or multiple sounds are inserted or added to a word. Examples include “doguh” for “dog” or “buhlack” for “black.”

Substitutions: One or multiple sounds are replaced with a different sound. Examples include “wabbit” for “rabbit,” “dood” for “good,” or “bat” for “pat.”

Distortions: Sounds are changed or altered. An example is an interdental “s” where the “s” sound is being generated with the tongue sticking out in the middle of teeth.

Prosody errors: This refers to inappropriate use of rhythm, stress, intonation, and intensity during speech.

Syllable-level errors: A syllable is deleted or repeated. Examples include “te_phone” for “telephone” or “dada” for “dad.”

An assessment by a speech therapist is important to find out the type of articulation disorder a kid with unclear speech has. Other allied health or medical professionals might also need to be included in the assessment and management of the condition.

Speech Difficulties Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

Are you looking for apps, tools, and resources that you can use to help students with speech difficulties? If so, we have you covered. Check out our list below. Let us know if there are any that we missed.

Naming Therapy– This app helps people with aphasia and children with special needs to practice important naming and description skills. It was designed for both personal and professional uses by speech-language pathologists. The app contains beautiful images, real voice, and full personalization features with more than 700 words. You can also practice naming with over 400 photographs accompanied by clues. You can customize the tests by adding your photos and hints and assigning appropriate scores. The app keeps a record of which clue led you to choose the correct answer; reports are generated and sent to you via email.

Sono Flex – A vocabulary app that turns symbols into speech, Sono Flex allows nonverbal persons to access and use language. Flexibility is key when using symbol-to-speech technology, and Sono Flex provides this critical component by allowing symbols to be individually or situationally tailored. The app comes with over 50 pre-made context packages for various situations and themes. Sono Flex is useful for speech and language pathologists, special education teachers, family, and caregivers.

Speech Difficulties Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

Are you looking for apps, tools, and resources that you can use to help students with speech difficulties? If so, we have you covered. Check out our list below. Let us know if there are any that we missed.

Naming Therapy– This app helps people with aphasia and children with special needs to practice important naming and description skills. It was designed for both personal and professional uses by speech-language pathologists. The app contains beautiful images, real voice, and full personalization features with more than 700 words. You can also practice naming with over 400 photographs accompanied by clues. You can customize the tests by adding your photos and hints and assigning appropriate scores. The app keeps a record of which clue led you to choose the correct answer; reports are generated and sent to you via email.

Sono Flex – A vocabulary app that turns symbols into speech, Sono Flex allows nonverbal persons to access and use language. Flexibility is key when using symbol-to-speech technology, and Sono Flex provides this critical component by allowing symbols to be individually or situationally tailored. The app comes with over 50 pre-made context packages for various situations and themes. Sono Flex is useful for speech and language pathologists, special education teachers, family, and caregivers.

Speech Impairment Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

Are you looking for apps, tools, and resources that you can use with your students who have speech impairments? If so, we have you covered. Check out our list below. Let us know if there are any that we missed.

Naming Therapy– This app helps people with aphasia and children with special needs to practice important naming and description skills. It was designed for both personal and professional uses by speech-language pathologists. The app contains beautiful images, real voice, and full personalization features with more than 700 words. You can also practice naming with over 400 photographs accompanied by clues. You can customize the tests by adding your photos and hints and assigning appropriate scores. The app keeps a record of which clue led you to choose the correct answer; reports are generated and sent to you via email.

Sono Flex – A vocabulary app that turns symbols into speech, Sono Flex allows nonverbal persons to access and use language. Flexibility is key when using symbol-to-speech technology, and Sono Flex provides this critical component by allowing symbols to be individually or situationally tailored. The app comes with over 50 pre-made context packages for various situations and themes. Sono Flex is useful for speech and language pathologists, special education teachers, family, and caregivers.

Voice Recognition Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

Are you looking for voice recognition apps, tools, and resources that you can use with your students? If so, we have you covered. Check out our list below. Let us know if there are any that we missed.

ClaroPDF Pro – This is an iOS app that lets you make notes and highlights on your PDF files. PDF files can be read back to you in human-like voices. You can also listen to PDF files in the background while you work on another app (useful for proofreading).

ClaroSpeak This is a text-to-speech app that allows for high-quality output. It can be used to proofread texts using the voice feature. The integration feature also allows direct text-to-speech conversion from platforms such as Mail, Google Drive, or Dropbox.

Naming Therapy– This app helps people with aphasia and children with special needs to practice important naming and description skills. It was designed for both personal and professional uses by speech-language pathologists. The app contains beautiful images, real voice, and full personalization features with more than 700 words. You can also practice naming with over 400 photographs accompanied by clues. You can customize the tests by adding your photos and hints and assigning appropriate scores. The app keeps a record of which clue led you to choose the correct answer; reports are generated and sent to you via email.

Rainbow Sentences– Students learn better with color-coding, which is why Rainbow Sentences was developed on this concept. Students can improve their grammatical construction of sentences with the aid of color cues. In this app, every part that makes up a sentence is color-coded, enabling students to quickly recognize and understand the building blocks of basic sentence structures. Every part of speech from nouns, pronouns, verbs, and prepositions is covered in this educational app. For better cognition and comprehension, students can record sentences in their voice on the app.

SparkleFish – Similar in style to MadLibs, SparkleFish allows students to record their own voice supplying various parts of speech (noun, adjective, verb), which are used by the app to create hilarious stories. The app comes with six free stories, and additional packs of stories are available for purchase. All recordings can be saved for later listening and even shared with others. SparkleFish makes a useful addition to literacy classes and can be used by speech and language pathologists and occupational therapists.

SpeakingPal English Tutor – Using speech recognition and with each session lasting less than two minutes, SpeakingPal English Tutor is a quick and easy way to review English skills. The app includes interactive video dialogues where the user’s response impacts the video events. While the user roleplays a character, feedback is given based on their word choice and sentence structure. For each answer required by the app, the user can hear a native speaker and compare their responses. A progress page is provided to make it easy to see improvements. Scores and progress can also be shared with friends.

21 Strategies to Help Students Who Suffer From Expressive Language Disorder

Are you looking for strategies to help students who suffer from expressive language disorder? If so, keep reading.

1. Let the learner talk without being interrupted or hurried.

2. Utilize a private signal (e.g., touching earlobe, raising an index finger, etc.) to remind the learner to speak in finished sentences and use specific terminology.

3. Give the learner a topic (e.g., rules to follow when riding your bike) and have them write finished sentences about it.

4. When the learner is required to remember information, remind them of the situation in which the content was initially presented (e.g., “Remember yesterday when we talked about … ” “Remember when we were outside, and I told you about the … ” etc.).

5. When the learner is required to recall information, give visual and/or auditory signals to help them remember the information (e.g., mention keywords, expose part of an image, etc.).

6. Ask the learner leading questions to enable the process of speaking in finished sentences and using specific vocabulary.

7. Ask the parents to encourage the learner’s use of finished sentences and thoughts at home by praising them when these are used.

8. Give frequent interactions and encouragement to support the learner’s confidence (e.g., make statements such as, “You’re doing great.” “Keep up the excellent work.” “I really am proud of you.” etc.).

9. Boost the learner’s understanding of the problem by recording the learner while they are speaking with another learner who uses finished sentences. Replay the recording for the learner to see if they can find unfinished sentences and common terminology. Get the learner to make appropriate modifications.

10. Make sure the learner knows the concept of a “finished” sentence by pointing out the “subject/verb/object” components through the use of objects, images, and/or written sentences (depending on the learner’s abilities).

11. Make sure the learner knows that a finished sentence has to express a finished thought about a subject and what that subject is or does, and that use of specific vs. nondescriptive vocabulary is essential to clarify the message.

12. Create a list of the learner’s most common unfinished statements and uses of nondescriptive terminology. Spend time with the learner practicing how to make these statements or thoughts finished and make appropriate replacements of nondescriptive vocabulary.

13. Write down the attributes an excellent speaker possesses (e.g., rate, diction, volume, vocabulary, etc.) and have the learner assess themselves on each characteristic. Establish a goal for improvement in only one or two areas at a time.

14. Make groups of cards containing subjects, verbs, adjectives, etc. Get the learner to combine the cards in several ways to create finished sentences.

15. Urge oral output. Boost the learner’s chances to connect orally, and give them with appropriate practice.

16. Focus on completeness of the learner’s thought and not the grammatical accuracy of the statement. Praise finished thoughts that include specific vocabulary.

17. On occasions where speaking privately with the learner, repeat their unfinished sentences and/or nondescriptive vocabulary with a rising inflection to indicate the need for additional information(e.g., “You saw the stuff in the sky?” or “Your brown dog … ?”) to see if the learner recognizes the problem and spontaneously makes appropriate corrections.

18. Get the learner to give process statements to sequence all learning experience s (e.g., how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich). Get the learner to focus on making each statement a finished thought with specific vs. nondescriptive vocabulary.

19. Provide the learner a factual statement and have them give several finished sentences relating to that topic.

20. Consider using a language development app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

21. Consider using an assistive technology designed to support students with articulation disorder.