Celebrate Better Hearing and Speech Month in May
posted by Emily Jacobs on Wednesday, May 11, 2022
May is Better Hearing and Speech Month. At Spencer Hospital, our speech therapists work with individuals of all ages in the inpatient and outpatient settings. Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) work to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive communication, and swallowing disorders in children and adults.
People with speech impairments may not produce sounds clearly or smoothly. This can be caused by developmental disorders, genetic syndromes, or brain diseases.
Language impairments include expression, comprehension, reading, and writing difficulty. This may be caused by premature birth, stroke, or brain injury.
When a person presents with difficulty with the use of verbal and non-verbal communication that is defined as social communication disorder. This may include difficulty with greetings, comments, asking questions, following rules for conversations, and storytelling. Social communication disorders can occur with individuals who have autism or traumatic brain injury.
A cognitive communication impairment can involve difficulty with memory, attention, problem solving, judgment, and organizational skills. These disorders usually occur due to a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or dementia.
Swallowing disorder can occur in adults as well as children. A feeding disorder for a child may include problems with latching, eating from a spoon, chewing, or drinking from a cup. A swallowing disorder may involve coughing or gagging during meals, food or liquid leaking from the mouth, food getting stuck in the mouth or throat. This can be caused due to a preterm birth, developmental disabilities, medical conditions, and illness or injury.
If you or someone you know would benefit from speech therapy, please contact your doctor who can refer you for a speech therapy evaluation with us.
- speech
- therapy