| Question | Answer |
| speech disorder | a difficulty producing sounds as well as problems with the quality of voice or fluency of speech (stuttering) |
| language disorder | difficulty receiving, understanding, or formulating ideas and information |
| receptive language disorder | difficulty receiving or understanding information |
| expressive language disorder | difficulty formulating ideas and information |
| cleft palate or lip | where a person has a split in the upper part of the oral cavity or the upper part of their lip. |
| dialect | a language variation that a group of individuals uses and that reflects shared regional, social, or cultural/ethnic factors. |
| Speech | the oral expression of language |
| Language | a structured, shared, rule-governed, symbolic system for communicating |
| Phonology | the use of sounds to make meaningful syllables and words. Encompasses the rules and sequencing of individual speech sounds and how they are produced, also called phonemes |
| Morphology | the system that governs the structure of words |
| Morpheme | the smallest meaningful unit of speech. |
| Syntax | provides rules for putting together a series of words to form sentences. |
| Semantics | the meaning of what is expressed. Has both receptive and expressive components. |
| Pragmatics | the use of communication in contexts. The overall organizer for language. |
| Social interaction theories | emphasize that communication skills are learned through social interactions. Communication develops in order to convey information about the environment to others and is learned through interactions with others. |
| Articulation | a speaker's production of individual or sequenced sounds. |
| Substitutions | when a child substitutes a "d" for a "th" or a "t" for a "k" or a "w" for an "r" |
| Omissions | when a child leaves a phoneme out of a word. Children often omit consonant pairs |
| Additions | when a student places a vowel between two consonants |
| Distortions | modifications of the production of a phoneme in a word. The listener gets the sense that the sound is being produced, but it seems distorted. |
| Apraxia | a motor speech disorder that affects the way in which a student plans to produce speech. It can be a result of trauma such as a stroke, tumor, or head injury. People with apraxia have difficulty positioning the articulators and sequencing the sounds. |
| Pitch | affected by the tension and size of the vocal folds, the health or the larynx, and the location of the larynx. |
| Duration | the length of time any speech sound requires |
| Intensity | loudness or softness, is based on the perception of the listener and is determined by the air pressure coming from the lungs through the vocal folds. |
| Resonance | the perceived quality of someone's voice. It is determined by the way in which the tone coming from the vocal folds is modified by the spaces of the throat, mouth, and nose. |
| hypernasality | Resonance problems because the opening from the mouth to the nasal cavity is too large or inappropriately shaped.Air is allowed to pass through the nasal cavity on sounds other than m, n, and ng. |
| hyponasality | When a person sounds as if they have a cold or are holding their noses when speaking. Air cannot pass through the nose and comes through the mouth instead. Speech therapy may be needed for these students to teach how to produce non-nasal sounds |
| specific language impairment | a language impairment that is not related to any physical or intellectual disability. |
| Organic disorders | caused by an identifiable problem in the neuromuscular mechanism of the person |
| Functional disorders | those with no identifiable organic or neurological cause |
| Congenital disorder | A disorder that occurs at or before birth |
| Acquired disorder | A disorder that occurs well after birth |
| Bilingual | a student who can use two languages equally well |
| Bidialectual | a student who can use two variatons of a language |
| System for Augmenting Language (SAL) | Communication partners augment their speech by activating the student's communication device in naturally occurring communication interactions at home, school and in the community, encouraging the student to use the device. |
