An Alphabetical listing of key terminology used to describe different aspects of speech and language, the consequences of impaired language, solutions and underlying conditions 

 

Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) is used to describe communication systems that do not use verbal language but ‘alternative’ systems that could include formal sign language or symbol systems
Low tech AAC is a term used to describe an AAC system that uses symbols or signs without the use of an electronic device.
High tech AAC is a term used to describe an AAC system that uses symbols and software linked into a device that can produce an electronic voice or speech often referred to as a VOCA.
Acquired refers to a change typically a loss,  that interferes with an aspect of communication. It is a term typically used with adults but can be used with children if they are over the age of 2 years and had started to develop their language skill.
Anxiety Is commonplace but to qualify as an anxiety disorder the anxiety behaviours for that individual are prolonged; there are various anxiety disorders that include Selective Mutism, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The wide range of behaviours associated with anxiety vary from person to person but do include avoidance of particular tasks and situations that the individual associates with the traumatic experience that has led to the prolonging of their anxiety.
Aphasia is an impairment in a person's ability to comprehend or formulate language because of dysfunction in specific parts of the brain that control language.
Articulation is the accuracy with which a sound is produced from the placement of the articulators to the required pressure to make the sound.  The target sound will be recognisable but distorted.
Articulators are anatomical parts of the vocal tract that are used to produce speech and include lips, teeth, tongue, hard and soft palate.
Attention refers to a child's ability to focus on a specific stimulus or task, progressing through 6 developmental stages "fleeting attention" (easily distracted), "rigid attention" (focused on self-chosen activity), "single channelled attention" (can attend to one thing at a time with adult direction), "two channelled attention" (can listen to instructions while doing another task), and finally, "integrated attention" (sustained focus across different situations).  Without attention a child’s language development is likely to be disrupted and they typically have a patchy profile having missed out on opportunities for their language development.

Auditory Processing Disorder

(APD)

 describes how the brain processes auditory information – the individual has no structural abnormality with their hearing mechanism but has difficulty in recognising and interpreting sounds including speech sounds; symptoms include struggling to recall a list or sequence, requesting repetition of instructions or information, mispronouncing what is heard with similar sounding non or real words & interpreting words too literally.
Challenging Behaviour is abnormal behaviour that restrict the experiences and opportunities for that individual and may cause harm to the individual or those around them.
Cleft Palate is a gap in the roof of the mouth. The back of the palate (towards the throat) is called the soft palate, and the front (towards the lips) is called the hard palate. A cleft can affect the soft palate or both the soft and hard palate.  In some instances it can extend as far as the lip and the lip like the palate is not completely formed.
Ssub-mucous Cleft is a congenital defect of the palate, which forms the roof of the mouth. The cleft (or opening) is underneath the mucous membrane, which is the tissue that covers the roof of the mouth and is often hidden unlike a cleft palate.  A submucous cleft affects the uvula and in severe cases, the submucous cleft can extend under both the soft and hard palate.
Cluttering is rapid rate of speech that is erratic and without well defined pronunciation of the words being used; in addition the individual can present with confusing disorganised narrative skills and conversation skills, be difficult to understand periodically, distractible, have sloppy handwriting and auditory perceptual difficulties.
Language Delay is used to describe a language acquisition pattern that is following a normal route but is lagging behind the child’s age.
Developmental refers to a child’s acquisition of a skill i.e. understanding, expressing themselves with correctly formed grammar and links skills to an expected age when that skill should be acquired.
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) Is a language impairment that restricts their education; they are over the age of 5 years and there is no distinction between whether they have a disorder or delay. Guidance argues those children who have a diagnosis of ASD cannot qualify for this language diagnosis.   This is a recent diagnostic category that replaces the need to distinguish between delay and disorder.
Language Disorder is specifically a pattern of language development that does not follow the usual route - can be a profile of patchy language development, sharply contrasting scores on formal assessment or with expressive language better developed than receptive language.
Dysarthria is a motor speech disorder resulting from neurological injury
and characterized by poor articulation of sounds because the muscles that help produce speech are uncoordinated.
Dysfluency is most obviously observed in an individual’s articulation with excessive repetition of a particular sound or prolonged elongation or ‘blocking’ of a particular sound and repetition of whole words, phrases and sentences.  There are a range of underlying aetiologies that includes neurological, psychological, social and environmental and also language disorder.
Dysphasia is a language disorder that affects the ability to produce and understand spoken language.  It is a partial loss of full language function and typically a result of a brain insult or injury and is considered an acquired condition.
Dyspraxia is a condition affecting physical co-ordination that causes a child to perform less well than expected in daily activities for their age, and appear to move clumsily and struggle to produce sounds at will.  The same sounds may be produced involuntarily correctly.
Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder. People with dystonia experience involuntary muscle spasms and contractions. Movements are often repetitive and cause unusual, awkward and sometimes painful postures. Tremor (shaking) is often associated with some types of dystonia.
Expressive Language refers to organising and sharing information/ideas using spoken language.
Higher Level Language refers to the ability to combine different sources of information, make deductions and inferences and interpret what is said = receptive higher level language.  Expressive higher level language is the ability to prioritise and organise information and adjust the presentation of the information to describe, explain, justify, persuade and justify.
Hyper-nasality is caused when airflow escapes into the nasal cavity during speech, commonly due to dysfunction (mechanical or neuromuscular) of the velopharyngeal valving mechanism i.e. soft palate.
Hypo-nasality is caused by reduced nasal cavity resonance during speech, usually due to anatomical obstruction of the nasal cavity.
Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD) is characterised by behaviours such as often losing their temper, arguing with adults, defying adult requests, and deliberately annoying others, shifting blame to others, as well as being touchy, easily annoyed, angry, resentful, spiteful or vindictive.
Pallilalia is the immediate repetition of a speaker’s own words spoken usually although not always under our breath. It is considered to be a nervous tic and is associated with Parkinsons and Tourettes Syndrome.
Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is the avoidance of tasks using strategies such as
delay, distraction, shouting, falling to the ground, saying body parts don't work, negotiating, escaping, difficult or dangerous behaviour – all motivated to avoid their involvement in a task.
Phonology refers to the organisation and sequencing of sounds within the rules of that specific language to produce intelligible and recognised words.
Phonological Disorder refers to an sound errors that might be observed in younger children but are inappropriate for the age of the child or are unusual errors that are not typically observed in any child’s speech sound development.
Pica is the eating of substances that are not safe such as soil or are inappropriate – eating paper, wallpaper or distasteful to others – eating faeces.
Pragmatic Language is the use of verbal language for a variety of purposes – social greetings, protesting, asking, answering, making requests, confirming/denials, seeking clarification.
Prosody refers to the aspects of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are larger units of speech such as intonation, stress, and rhythm.
Receptive Language refers to the understanding of spoken language.
Selective Mutism is an anxiety disorder in which a person who is normally capable of speech cannot speak in specific situations or to specific people and even when the consequences of their silence include shame, social ostracism or even punishment.
Semantic Language refers to the ability to understand meaning in different types of words, phrases, signs and symbols. 
Social Interaction is the process of reciprocal influence exercised by individuals over one another during a verbal exchange – formal or informal; typically refers to face-to-face encounters in which people are physically present with one another for a specified duration.
Social Skills are a blend of rules and skills we use everyday to interact and communicate with others and include verbal and non-verbal communication, such as speech, gesture, facial expression and body language.
Social Thinking is the ability to combine different sources of information to inform an appropriate response to a social unstructured situation and relies on a wide range of skills that are considered higher level language skills but unlike higher level language are specific to social interaction.
Stammer/Stutter See dysfluency above.
Velo-pharyngeal incompetence (VPI) is a disorder of the velopharyngeal (VP) sphincter or valve, which separates the nasal and oral cavities during speech, swallowing, vomiting, blowing, and sucking
Vocal Cord Nodules or Polyps are calluses located on the  vocal cords which cause the voice to sound raspy, breathy, or hoarse because the polyps prevent the vocal cords from vibrating normally.  In children the condition is often nicknamed ‘shouter’s nodes’.
Voice is the sound that air makes when it is forced from the lungs and passes through the vocal folds in the trachea.

 

Speech Sort, June 2025