ASSIGNMENT

IN

CP ECC

SUBMITTED TO:
MA’AM NELLIE V. APATAS

SUBMITTED BY:
SHAMYR A. SORIANO
Specific Learning Disabilities
Young boy listening to a friend talking
into his hear, demonstrating symptoms
of Auditory Processing
Disorder.Auditory Processing Disorder
(APD)

Also known as Central Auditory

Processing Disorder, this is a condition
that adversely affects how sound that
travels unimpeded through the ear is
processed or interpreted by the brain.
Individuals with APD do not recognize
subtle differences between sounds in
words, even when the sounds are loud
and clear enough to be heard. They can
also find it difficult to tell where
sounds are coming from, to make sense
of the order of sounds, or to block out
competing background noises.

Learn more about Auditory Processing

Disorder
Young femaile student having difficulty
with math problem on chalkboard
displaying symptoms of
Dyscalculia.Dyscalculia

A specific learning disability that

affects a person’s ability to understand
numbers and learn math facts.
Individuals with this type of LD may also
have poor comprehension of math
symbols, may struggle with memorizing
and organizing numbers, have difficulty
telling time, or have trouble with
counting.

Learn more about Dyscalculia

Student having difficulty writing while

doing school work, expressing symptoms
of Dysgraphia.Dysgraphia
A specific learning disability that
affects a person’s handwriting ability
and fine motor skills. Problems may
include illegible handwriting,
inconsistent spacing, poor spatial
planning on paper, poor spelling, and
difficulty composing writing as well as
thinking and writing at the same time.

Learn more about Dysgraphia

Young female student expressing

frustration while rereading,
demonstrating symptoms of
Dyslexia.Dyslexia

A specific learning disability that

affects reading and related language-
based processing skills. The severity
can differ in each individual but can
affect reading fluency, decoding,
reading comprehension, recall, writing,
spelling, and sometimes speech and can
exist along with other related
disorders. Dyslexia is sometimes
referred to as a Language-Based
Learning Disability.

Learn more about Dyslexia

Little girl holding up toy blocks that

spell "LEARN".Language Processing
Disorder

A specific type of Auditory Processing

Disorder (APD) in which there is
difficulty attaching meaning to sound
groups that form words, sentences and
stories. While an APD affects the
interpretation of all sounds coming into
the brain, a Language Processing
Disorder (LPD) relates only to the
processing of language. LPD can affect
expressive language and/or receptive
language.
Learn more about Language Processing
Disorder

Young boy sitting alone holding his

kneesNon-Verbal Learning Disabilities

A disorder which is usually

characterized by a significant
discrepancy between higher verbal
skills and weaker motor, visual-spatial
and social skills. Typically, an individual
with NLD (or NVLD) has trouble
interpreting nonverbal cues like facial
expressions or body language, and may
have poor coordination.

Learn more about Non-Verbal Learning

Disabilities
Young girl having difficulty painting
displaying symptoms of Visual
Perception/Visual Motor Deficit
disorder.Visual Perceptual/Visual
Motor Deficit

A disorder that affects the

understanding of information that a
person sees, or the ability to draw or
copy. A characteristic seen in people
with learning disabilities such as
Dysgraphia or Non-verbal LD, it can
result in missing subtle differences in
shapes or printed letters, losing place
frequently, struggles with cutting,
holding pencil too tightly, or poor
eye/hand coordination.

Learn more about Visual

Perceptual/Visual Motor Deficit

Related Disorders
Distracted teenage student looking out
of classroom window during school
displaying symptoms of ADHD.ADHD

A disorder that includes difficulty

staying focused and paying attention,
difficulty controlling behavior and
hyperactivity. Although ADHD is not
considered a learning disability,
research indicates that from 30-50
percent of children with ADHD also
have a specific learning disability, and
that the two conditions can interact to
make learning extremely challenging.

Learn more about ADHD

Young child playing in children's ball

pit.Dyspraxia
A disorder that is characterized by
difficulty in muscle control, which
causes problems with movement and
coordination, language and speech, and
can affect learning. Although not a
learning disability, dyspraxia often
exists along with dyslexia, dyscalculia
or ADHD.

Learn more about Dyspraxia

Executive FunctioningYoung adult

woman writing in her organizer

An inefficiency in the cognitive

management systems of the brain that
affects a variety of neuropsychological
processes such as planning,
organization, strategizing, paying
attention to and remembering details,
and managing time and space. Although
not a learning disability, different
patterns of weakness in executive
functioning are almost always seen in
the learning profiles of individuals who
have specific learning disabilities or
ADHD.

Learn more about Executive Functioning

Young man with string tied to finger

trying to remember something.Memory

Three types of memory are important to

learning. Working memory, short-term
memory and long-term memory are used
in the processing of both verbal and
non-verbal information. If there are
deficits in any or all of these types of
memory, the ability to store and retrieve
information required to carry out tasks
can be impaired.

Speech disorders or speech impediments

are a type of communication disorder
where 'normal' speech is disrupted. This
can mean stuttering, lisps, etc. Someone
who is unable to speak due to a speech
disorder is considered mute.[1]

Speech disorder/impediment
Specialty
Psychiatry
Classification
Edit

Classifying speech into normal and

disordered is more problematic than it
first seems. By a strict
classification,[citation needed] only 5%
to 10% of the population has a
completely normal manner of speaking
(with respect to all parameters) and
healthy voice; all others suffer from
one disorder or another.
There are three different levels of
classification when determining the
magnitude and type of a speech disorder
and the proper treatment or therapy:[2]

Sounds the patient can produce

Phonemic – can be produced easily; used
meaningfully and constructively
Phonetic – produced only upon request;
not used consistently, meaningfully, or
constructively; not used in connected
speech
Stimulate sounds
Easily stimulated
Stimulate after demonstration and
probing (i.e. with a tongue depressor)
Cannot produce the sound
Cannot be produced voluntarily
No production ever observed
Types of disorder
Edit
Apraxia of speech may result from
stroke or progressive illness, and
involves inconsistent production of
speech sounds and rearranging of
sounds in a word ("potato" may become
"topato" and next "totapo"). Production
of words becomes more difficult with
effort, but common phrases may
sometimes be spoken spontaneously
without effort.
Cluttering, a speech and fluency
disorder characterized primarily by a
rapid rate of speech, which makes
speech difficult to understand.
Developmental verbal dyspraxia also
known as childhood apraxia of speech.
Dysarthria is a weakness or paralysis of
speech muscles caused by damage to the
nerves or brain. Dysarthria is often
caused by strokes, Parkinson's disease,
ALS, head or neck injuries, surgical
accident, or cerebral palsy.
Dysprosody is the rarest neurological
speech disorder. It is characterized by
alterations in intensity, in the timing of
utterance segments, and in rhythm,
cadence, and intonation of words. The
changes to the duration, the
fundamental frequency, and the
intensity of tonic and atonic syllables
of the sentences spoken, deprive an
individual's particular speech of its
characteristics. The cause of
dysprosody is usually associated with
neurological pathologies such as brain
vascular accidents, cranioencephalic
traumatisms, and brain tumors.[3]
Muteness is complete inability to speak.
Speech sound disorders involve
difficulty in producing specific speech
sounds (most often certain consonants,
such as /s/ or /r/), and are subdivided
into articulation disorders (also called
phonetic disorders) and phonemic
disorders. Articulation disorders are
characterized by difficulty learning to
produce sounds physically. Phonemic
disorders are characterized by
difficulty in learning the sound
distinctions of a language, so that one
sound may be used in place of many.
However, it is not uncommon for a single
person to have a mixed speech sound
disorder with both phonemic and
phonetic components.
Stuttering affects approximately 1% of
the adult population.[1]
Voice disorders are impairments, often
physical, that involve the function of
the larynx or vocal resonance.
Causes
Edit

In most cases the cause is unknown.

However, there are various known
causes of speech impediments, such as
"hearing loss, neurological disorders,
brain injury, intellectual disability,
drug abuse, physical impairments such as
cleft lip and palate, and vocal abuse or
misuse."[4]

Treatment
Edit

Learn more
The examples and perspective in this
article may not represent a worldwide
view of the subject.
Many of these types of disorders can be
treated by speech therapy, but others
require medical attention by a doctor in
phoniatrics. Other treatments include
correction of organic conditions and
psychotherapy.[5]

In the United States, school-age

children with a speech disorder are
often placed in special education
programs. Children who struggle to
learn to talk often experience
persistent communication difficulties in
addition to academic struggles.[6] More
than 700,000 of the students served in
the public schools’ special education
programs in the 2000-2001 school year
were categorized as having a speech or
language impediment. This estimate does
not include children who have speech
and language impairments secondary to
other conditions such as deafness".[4]
Many school districts provide the
students with speech therapy during
school hours, although extended day
and summer services may be appropriate
under certain circumstances.

Patients will be treated in teams,

depending on the type of disorder they
have. A team can include SLPs,
specialists, family doctors, teachers,
and family members.
Social effects
Edit

Suffering from a speech disorder can

have negative social effects, especially
among young children. Those with a
speech disorder can be targets of
bullying because of their disorder. The
bullying can result in decreased self-
esteem.

Language disorders
Edit

Language disorders are usually

considered distinct from speech
disorders, even though they are often
used synonymously.

Speech disorders refer to problems in

producing the sounds of speech or with
the quality of voice, where language
disorders are usually an impairment of
either understanding words or being
able to use words and do not have to do
with speech production.[7]
10 Most Common Speech-Language
Disorders
Apraxia of Speech (AOS)
Apraxia of Speech (AOS) happens when
the neural pathway between the brain
and a person’s speech function (speech
muscles) is lost or obscured. The person
knows what they want to say – they can
even write what they want to say on
paper – however the brain is unable to
send the correct messages so that
speech muscles can articulate what
they want to say, even though the
speech muscles themselves work just
fine.

There are different levels of severity

of AOS, ranging from mostly functional,
to speech that is incoherent. And right
now we know for certain it can be
caused by brain damage, such as in an
adult who has a stroke. This is called
Acquired AOS.

However the scientific and medical

community has been unable to detect
brain damage – or even differences – in
children who are born with this
disorder, making the causes of
Childhood AOS somewhat of a mystery.
There is often a correlation present,
with close family members suffering
from learning or communication
disorders, suggesting there may be a
genetic link.

Mild cases might be harder to diagnose,

especially in children where multiple
unknown speech disorders may be
present. Symptoms of mild forms of AOS
are shared by a range of different
speech disorders, and include
mispronunciation of words and
irregularities in tone, rhythm, or
emphasis (prosody).

Severe cases are more easily diagnosed,

with symptoms including inability to
articulate words, groping for sound
positions, off-target movements that
distort sounds, and inconsistency in
pronunciation.

Stuttering – Stammering
Stuttering, also referred to as
stammering, is so common that everyone
knows what it sounds like and can easily
recognize it. Everyone has probably had
moments of stuttering at least once in
their life. The National Institute on
Deafness and Other Communication
Disorders estimates that three million
Americans stutter, and reports that of
the up-to-10-percent of children who do
stutter, three-quarters of them will
outgrow it. It should not be confused
with cluttering.

Most people don’t know that stuttering

can also include non-verbal involuntary
or semi-voluntary actions like blinking
or abdominal tensing (tics). Speech
language pathologists are trained to
look for all the symptoms of stuttering,
especially the non-verbal ones, and that
is why an SLP is qualified to make a
stuttering diagnosis.

The earliest this fluency disorder can

become apparent is when a child is
learning to talk. It may also surface
later during childhood. Rarely if ever
has it developed in adults, although
many adults have kept a stutter from
childhood.
Stuttering only becomes a problem
when it has an impact on daily activities,
or when it causes concern to parents or
the child suffering from it. In some
people, a stutter is triggered by certain
events like talking on the phone. When
people start to avoid specific activities
so as not to trigger their stutter, this is
a sure sign that the stutter has reached
the level of a speech disorder.

The causes of stuttering are mostly a

mystery. There is a correlation with
family history indicating a genetic link.
Another theory is that a stutter is a
form of involuntary or semi-voluntary
tic. Most studies of stuttering agree
there are many factors involved.

Because the causes of stuttering are

largely unknown the treatments are
mostly behavioral. Triggers often
precede a stuttering episode, and SLPs
can help people recognize and cope with
these triggers ahead of time.

Dysarthria
Dysarthria is a symptom of nerve or
muscle damage. It manifests itself as
slurred speech, slowed speech, limited
tongue, jaw, or lip movement, abnormal
rhythm and pitch when speaking,
changes in voice quality, difficulty
articulating, labored speech, and other
related symptoms.

It is caused by muscle damage, or nerve

damage to the muscles involved in the
process of speaking such as the
diaphragm, lips, tongue, and vocal
chords.

Because it is a symptom of nerve and/or

muscle damage it can be caused by a wide
range of phenomena that affect people
of all ages. This can start during
development in the womb or shortly
after birth as a result of conditions like
muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy.
In adults some of the most common
causes of dysarthria are stroke,
tumors, and MS.

As an SLP there’s not much you can do

about muscle damage, and even less you
can do about nerve damage. So for
treatments you’ll focus on managing the
dysarthria symptoms through behavior
changes. This can include helping a
person slow down when they’re
speaking, breath training, and
exercising the muscles that are involved
in speech.

Lisping
A lay term, lisping can be recognized by
anyone and is very common.
Speech language pathologists provide
an extra level of expertise and can make
sure that a lisp is not being confused
with another type of disorder such as
apraxia, aphasia, impaired development
of expressive language, or a speech
impediment caused by hearing loss.

SLPs are also important in

distinguishing between the five
different types of lisps. Most
laypersons can usually pick out the
most common type, the
interdental/dentalised lisp. This is
when a speaker makes a “th” sound when
trying to make the “s” sound. It is caused
by the tongue reaching past or touching
the front teeth.

Because lisps are functional speech

disorders, SLPs can play a huge role in
correcting these with results often
being a complete elimination of the lisp.
Treatment is particularly effective
when implemented early, although
adults can also benefit.

Experts recommend professional SLP

intervention if a child has reached the
age of four and still has an
interdental/dentalised lisp. SLP
intervention is recommended as soon as
possible for all other types of lisps.
Treatment includes pronunciation and
annunciation coaching, re-teaching how
a sound or word is supposed to be
pronounced, practice in front of a
mirror, and speech-muscle
strengthening that can be as simple as
drinking out of a straw.

Lisps usually develop during childhood,

and children will often outgrow an
interdental or dentalised lisp on their
own.
Spasmodic Dysphonia
Spasmodic Dysphonia (SD) is a chronic
long-term disorder that affects the
voice. It is characterized by a spasming
of the vocal chords when a person
attempts to speak and results in a voice
that can be described as shaky, hoarse,
groaning, tight, or jittery. It can cause
the emphasis of speech to vary
considerably.

SLPs will most often encounter this

disorder in adults, with the first
symptoms usually occurring between
the ages of 30 and 50. It can be caused by
a range of things mostly related to
aging, such as nervous system changes
and muscle tone disorders.

It’s difficult to isolate vocal chord

spasms as being responsible for a shaky
or trembly voice, so diagnosing SD is a
team effort for SLPs that also involves
an ear, nose, and throat doctor
(otolaryngologist) and a neurologist.

After diagnosis SLPs can have a role

helping with coaching to optimize voice
production, and can be particularly
effective in mild cases of SD. This
especially includes working on
breathing control techniques to
maintain a stead flow of air from the
lungs.

Cluttering
Have you ever heard people talking
about how they are smart but also
nervous in large groups of people, and
then self-diagnose themselves as having
Asperger’s? You might have heard a
similar lay diagnosis for cluttering. This
is an indication of how common this
disorder is as well as how crucial SLPs
are in making a proper diagnosis.
A fluency disorder, cluttering is
characterized by a person’s speech
being too rapid, too jerky, or both. To
qualify as cluttering, the person’s
speech must also have excessive
amounts of “well,” “um,” “like,” “hmm,”
or “so,” (speech disfluencies), an
excessive exclusion or collapsing of
syllables, or abnormal syllable
stresses or rhythms.

The first symptoms of this disorder

appear in childhood. Like other fluency
disorders, SLPs can have a huge impact
on improving or eliminating cluttering.
Intervention is most effective early on
in life, however adults can also benefit
from working with an SLP.

Treatment methods include delayed

audio feedback, syllable articulation
and annunciation coaching, playing
games that involve rapid word retrieval,
practicing pausing and phrasing in
sentences, and increasing a clutterer’s
own self-awareness of what they are
doing, such as through video recording.

Muteness – Selective Mutism

There are different kinds of mutism, and
here we are talking about selective
mutism. This used to be called elective
mutism to emphasize its difference from
disorders that caused mutism through
damage to, or irregularities in, the
speech process.

Selective mutism is when a person does

not speak in some or most situations,
however that person is physically
capable of speaking. It most often
occurs in children, and is commonly
exemplified by a child speaking at home
but not at school.
Selective mutism is related to
psychology. It appears in children who
are very shy, who have an anxiety
disorder, or who are going through a
period of social withdrawal or
isolation. These psychological factors
have their own origins and should be
dealt with through counseling or
another type of psychological
intervention.

Diagnosing selective mutism involves a

team of professionals including SLPs,
pediatricians, psychologists, and
psychiatrists. SLPs play an important
role in this process because there are
speech language disorders that can
have the same effect as selective
muteness – stuttering, aphasia, apraxia
of speech, or dysarthria – and it’s
important to eliminate these as
possibilities.
And just because selective mutism is
primarily a psychological phenomenon,
that doesn’t mean SLPs can’t do
anything. Quite the contrary.

SLPs can play an important role

through working with selectively mute
children to create a tailored
behavioral treatment program and
address speech and language disorders
– such as stuttering – that may be
contributing to psychological factors
like excessive shyness.

Aphasia
The National Institute on Neurological
Disorders and Stroke estimates that one
million Americans have some form of
aphasia.

Aphasia is a communication disorder

caused by damage to the brain’s
language capabilities. Aphasia differs
from apraxia of speech and dysarthria
in that it solely pertains to the brain’s
speech and language center.

As such anyone can suffer from aphasia

because brain damage can be caused by a
number of factors. However SLPs are
most likely to encounter aphasia in
adults, especially those who have had a
stroke. Other common causes of aphasia
are brain tumors, traumatic brain
injuries, and degenerative brain
diseases.

In addition to neurologists, speech

language pathologists have an
important role in diagnosing aphasia. As
an SLP you’ll assess factors such as a
person’s reading and writing,
functional communication, auditory
comprehension, and verbal expression.
Because the field of brain damage repair
is in its infancy, your role as an SLP is to
help with coping methods and
strategies. The brain is a remarkable
organ, and sometimes when one part
gets damaged another part will try and
pick up the slack. That means you can
also try working on activities to improve
the language skills that have been
affected by the brain damage –
sometimes this can have an effect.

Speech Delay – Alalia

A speech delay, known to professionals
as alalia, refers to the phenomenon
when a child is not making normal
attempts to verbally communicate.
There can be a number of factors
causing this to happen, and that’s why
it’s critical for a speech language
pathologist to be involved.
The are many potential reasons why a
child would not be using age-
appropriate communication. These can
range anywhere from the child being a
“late bloomer” – the child just takes a
bit longer than average to speak – to
the child having brain damage. It is the
role of an SLP to go through a process
of elimination, evaluating each
possibility that could cause a speech
delay, until an explanation is found.

Approaching a child with a speech delay

starts by distinguishing among the two
main categories an SLP will evaluate:
speech and language.

Speech has a lot to do with the organs

of speech – the tongue, mouth, and
vocal chords – as well as the muscles
and nerves that connect them with the
brain. Disorders like apraxia of speech
and dysarthria are two examples that
affect the nerve connections and
organs of speech. Other examples in this
category could include a cleft palette
or even hearing loss.

The other major category SLPs will

evaluate is language. This relates more
to the brain and can be affected by
brain damage or developmental
disorders like autism. There are many
different types of brain damage that
each manifest themselves differently,
as well as developmental disorders, and
the SLP will make evaluations for
everything.

Once the cause or causes for the speech

delay are identified then the SLP can go
to work treating and monitoring the
child. For many speech-language
disorders that cause a speech delay,
early intervention and evaluation by an
SLP can make a huge difference.
Issues Related to Autism
While the autism spectrum itself isn’t a
speech disorder, it makes this list
because the two go hand-in-hand more
often than not.

The Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC) reports that one out
of every 68 children in our country have
an autism spectrum disorder. And by
definition, all children who have autism
also have social communication
problems.

Speech-language pathologists are often

a critical voice on a team of
professionals – also including
pediatricians, occupational therapists,
neurologists, developmental
specialists, and physical therapists –
who make an autism spectrum diagnosis.
In fact, the American Speech-Language
Hearing Association reports that
problems with communication are the
first detectable signs of autism. That is
why language disorders – specifically
disordered verbal and nonverbal
communication – are one of the primary
diagnostic criteria for autism.

So what kinds of SLP disorders are you

likely to encounter with someone on the
autism spectrum?

A big one is apraxia of speech. A study

that came out of Penn State in 2015
found that 64 percent of children who
were diagnosed with autism also had
childhood apraxia of speech.

A 2013 study published in the National

Center for Biotechnology Information
out of Harvard Medical School cites
muteness, involuntarily repetition of
another person’s vocalizations
(echolalia), and unusual inflection and
tone (prosody) as also being
characteristics of people on the autism
spectrum, especially children. It points
out that in general language abilities
are impaired or delayed at an early age.

Definition
Speech and language impairment is
defined as a communication disorder
that adversely affects the child's
ability to talk, understand, read, and
write. This disability category can be
divided into two groups: speech
impairments and language impairments.

Prevalence
Speech and language impairments are
considered a high-incidence disability.
Approximately 20% of children receiving
special education services are receiving
services for speech and language
disorders. This estimate does not include
children who receive services for
speech and language disorders that are
secondary to other conditions such as
deafness. More than one-half (55.2%) of
all 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds with a disability
receive speech and language services.

Characteristics
Speech Impairments
There are three basic types of speech
impairments: articulation disorders,
fluency disorders, and voice disorders.

Articulation disorders are errors in the

production of speech sounds that may be
related to anatomical or physiological
limitations in the skeletal, muscular, or
neuromuscular support for speech
production. These disorders include:
Omissions: (bo for boat)
Substitutions: (wabbit for rabbit)
Distortions: (shlip for sip)
Fluency disorders are difficulties with
the rhythm and timing of speech
characterized by hesitations,
repetitions, or prolongations of sounds,
syllables, words, or phrases. Common
fluency disorders include:

Stuttering: rapid-fire repetitions of

consonant or vowel sounds especially
at the beginning of words,
prolongations, hesitations,
interjections, and complete verbal
blocks
Cluttering: excessively fast and jerky
speech
Voice disorders are problems with the
quality or use of one's voice resulting
from disorders in the larynx. Voice
disorders are characterized by
abnormal production and/or absences
of vocal quality, pitch, loudness,
resonance, and/or duration.

Language Impairments
There are five basic areas of language
impairments: phonological disorders,
morphological disorders, semantic
disorders, syntactical deficits, and
pragmatic difficulties.

Phonological disorders are defined as

the abnormal organization of the
phonological system, or a significant
deficit in speech production or
perception. A child with a phonological
disorder may be described as hard to
understand or as not saying the sounds
correctly. Apraxia of speech is a
specific phonological disorder where
the student may want to speak but has
difficulty planning what to say and the
motor movements to use.

Morphological disorders are defined as

difficulties with morphological
inflections (inflections on nouns, verbs,
and adjectives that signal different
kinds of meanings).

Semantic disorders are characterized

by poor vocabulary development,
inappropriate use of word meanings,
and/or inability to comprehend word
meanings. These students will
demonstrate restrictions in word
meanings, difficulty with multiple word
meanings, excessive use of nonspecific
terms (e.g., thing and stuff), and
indefinite references (e.g., that and
there).

Syntactic deficits are characterized by

difficulty in acquiring the rules that
govern word order and others aspects
of grammar such as subject-verb
agreement. Typically, these students
produce shorter and less elaborate
sentences with fewer cohesive
conjunctions than their peers.

Pragmatic difficulties are

characterized as problems in
understanding and using language in
different social contexts. These
students may lack an understanding of
the rules for making eye contact,
respecting personal space, requesting
information, and introducing topics.

Impact on Learning
Speech and language disorders are
problems in communication and related
areas such as oral motor function.
Delays and disorders may range from so
subtle that they have little or no impact
on daily living and socialization to the
inability to produce speech or to
understand and use language.
Fortunately, only a very small
percentage of children are at the most
extreme of severity. However, because
of the importance of language and
communication skills in a child's
development even mild to moderate
disorders or disturbances can have a
profound effect on all aspects of life,
sometimes isolating children from their
peers and their educational
environments.

Teaching Strategies
As with all students who receive special
education services, collaboration of a
multi-disciplinary team is necessary.
Students with speech or language
disorders will receive services from
many education professionals, including
general education teachers, special
education teachers, and speech-
language pathologists.
Speech-language pathologists provide a
variety of professional services aimed
at helping people develop effective
communication skills. These services may
include:

Helping children with articulation

disorders to learn proper production of
speech sounds
Helping children who stutter to speak
more fluently
Assisting children with voice disorders
to improve their voice quality
Helping individuals with aphasia to
relearn speech and language skills
Assisting individuals who have difficulty
swallowing as a result of illness,
surgery, stroke, or injury
Evaluating, selecting, and developing
augmentative and alternative
communication systems
Enhancing communication effectiveness
The general education teacher should
work with the speech-language
pathologist to incorporate strategies
to help the student generalize
strategies mastered in speech therapy.
This may include corrective measures,
helping with speech and language
exercises, and providing the student
with immediate feedback when the
speech-language pathologist is not
present. The general education and
special education teacher should both
collaborate with the speech-language
pathologist for interventions and
teaching strategies.

Common Visual Impairments in Young

Children

Editor�s Note: This information is

reprinted with permission of the
Visually Impaired Preschool Services
(VIPS), 1229 Garvin Place, Louisville, KY
40203(502) 636-3207, <www.vips.org>.

ALBINISM
Albinism involves the absence or
reduction of pigment in the eyes, skin,
and hair. It may affect only the eyes.
Effects on vision may include decreased
visual acuity, photophobia, nystagmus,
and strabismus.

ANIRIDIA
Aniridia is a hereditary condition where
the iris of the eye is underdeveloped. The
effects on vision include decreased
visual acuity, photophobia, nystagmus,
cataracts, and underdeveloped retinas.

CATARACTS
A congenital cataract is a hereditary
condition in which there is opacity of the
lens. The effects on vision include
decreased visual acuity, photophobia,
nystagmus, cataracts, and
underdeveloped retinas.

COLOBOMA
Coloboma is a hereditary condition in
which various parts of the eye may be
deformed. The effects on vision include
decreased acuity, nystagmus, and
strabismus.

CORTICAL VISUAL IMPAIRMENT (CVI)

Cortical visual impairment is a result of
damage to the vision center of the brain
due to trauma, anoxia, or malformation.
The effects on vision include decreased
acuity, nystagmus, and strabismus.

GLAUCOMA
Congenital glaucoma is a hereditary
condition in which the tissue of the eye is
damaged from increased intraocular
pressure. The effects on vision include
excessive tearing, photophobia, opacity
or haze on the lens, buphthalmos, poor
visual acuity, and constricted visual
fields.

OPTIC NERVE ATROPHY

Optic nerve atrophy is caused by damage
to the optic nerve. It can be hereditary
or may result from trauma, inadequate
blood or oxygen supply before or
shortly after birth, or hydrocephalus.
Effects on vision include decreased
visual acuity, decreased central vision,
decreased sensitivity in all visual fields,
and nystagmus.

OPTIC NERVE HYPOPLASIA (ONH)

ONH is generally of unknown cause. It
may appear by itself or in conjunction
with neurological or hormonal
abnormalities. The effects on vision may
include decreased visual acuity,
peripheral field loss, poor depth
perception, and mild photophobia.

NYSTAGMUS
Nystagmus is an involuntary, rhythmic
side-to-side or up-and-down eye movement
that often accompanies other visual
disorders.

RETINOPATHY OF PREMATURITY (ROP)

Retinopathy of prematurity is a
condition in which the retinas are
scarred due to an unusual growth of
blood vessels in the retina and vitreous.
This is usually found in premature
infants, but may also be found in full-
term infants. The effects on vision
include retinal detachments, severe
myopia, decreased visual acuity, and
blindness.