Services for Children with Speaking Disorder Research

He has attended daycare since he was 8 weeks old and has suffered chronic ear infections leading to the insertion of tubes several times since he was a toddler. His ENT forewarned his parents that because of the chronic ear infections he may have a speech disorder down the road. Within this paper I will discuss the available literature on speech disorder for various articles analyzed, how Mark’s disorder was identified, the process his family has gone through to receive services, what support he receives from his speech therapist, what articulation disorder is and what role his chronic ear infections may have had in his speech disorder. Speech and sound problems are common among toddlers and are associated with communication and reading difficulties.

Majority of children with expressive language problems are likely to recover without any therapeutic interventions, but those with both expressive and receptive problems usually require intervention to overcome the condition. In most cases, children with hearing loss during early age also suffer from articulation disorder. The condition requires appropriate therapy services in early stages of the child’s development since it negatively affects speech and language development (Kim et al. Articulation is the making of words and sounds. Articulation disorder is the incorrect pronunciation of words. Children with articulation disorder make words, syllables and sounds incorrectly. When a child’s speech is difficult to understand, several factors should be considered such as the age of the child, ear infections, hearing ability, sound error patterns and any sounds they have difficulty producing.

Children can become intelligible if they have difficulty being understood. It is normal for children to have speech errors and some of them outgrow it without any intervention while others may require significant attention of a therapist to become intelligible. According to Klatte & Roulstone, (2016), when parents have concerns about their child’s speech and sound, it is essential to consult a professional and have the child evaluated for intervention measures. The assessment for eligibility of intervention as Mark’s mom noted is never easy. Being always misunderstood or a lack of understanding at all is one of the major obstacles to a child’s development as they miss on back and forth conversations and play schemes that are fundamental in a their social, emotional, language and cognitive development.

These are good grounds to seek intervention. Other children make minor sound errors with specific sounds such as /th/ or /r/, which may not affect their intelligibility at all; however, it may be appropriate to also seek help of a therapist regarding these errors. Such errors may not affect the child’s development if what they say is always understood even with the sound errors present. The interventions for children with hearing problems may be carried out directly or indirectly, and in various settings such as school, homes, preschools, healthcare service provision, by the therapists themselves or with the help of the parents, teachers and support assistants. Only a small percentage of the populations are affected by difficulties in speech and for various reasons that may be clear or unclear.

It is essential for parents to put speech production in the broader perspective of a child’s development process when wondering if speech therapy will be necessary. Parents should consider the impact of a child’s articulation errors outside of the home (Klatte & Roulstone, 2016). Sometimes only the parents can understand what the child is saying, which is appropriate when the child is one or two years, however, when the child is three or four years and starts interaction with the outside world, speech errors become a concern. If the child has difficult producing only certain sounds and is otherwise completely intelligible, the parent may not need to seek the intervention of a therapist because the child will possibly acquire those sounds later on.

The society has moved from merely paying little attention to these children and only providing then with the basic needs to accommodating them with programs and services that help them achieve their goals. To ensure continuous improvement in integration of disabled persons in the society, there is need to scientifically demonstrate the effectiveness and efficacy of the current community support services to ensure better and collaborative service delivery. The stakeholders such as service providers, practicing clinicians and policy makers involved in supporting children with disabilities like Mark should widely advance the knowledge base concerning the support that these children and families need. More federal supported programs will go a long way in helping disabled children who are unable to access the costly therapy services and increase their educational opportunities (Horne, 2015).