Speech Problems

Introduction

Most people have experience difficulty speaking throughout their lives, especially in events or circumstances that create an important level of nervousness, anxiety, fear, tension or shock.
Whereas in the majority of people suffer these problems in isolated cases, there are also many people that experience these types of problems permanently and constitute a serious problem intheir social and working lives.
When we see a person having difficulty speaking clearly and conveying his ideas, the first thing that usually comes to our mind is excessive shyness and social phobia.
Although these guesses can be right, very few people consider that these problems can have their root in physical malformations. Problems that sometimes are impossible or extremely difficult to getrid of.
These types of conditions have to be treated carefully and responsibly in order to make the patient’s speech improve as much as humanly possible.
Unfortunately, some people that are diagnosed with a speech problem don’t get the proper treatment for lack of money, parental neglect or medical incompetence. This is why it is crucial to be aware of symptoms that show speech problems in orderto address them as soon as possible since this increases the probability of success in healing or helping the patient sufficiently.
Another important factor that needs to be considered as a problem for these people is the social pressure. Unfortunately, there are many people that make cruel jokes and make fun of people with speech conditions, which can create terrible traumas and harmful effectsin these patients’ lives. As a result, these people can suffer from low self-esteem, social phobia, anxiety, physical diseases and lack of motivation to overcome this condition.
In this work, different kinds of speech problems are going to be exposed deeply, showing causes, symptoms, treatments, factors and analyses in order to provide a clear explanation and overview of these problems that arecommonly misunderstood, ignored and neglected.
The main purpose of this work is to create consciousness about speech problems and show a simple but precise idea of what these conditions are about and how they can be addressed.
I hope this work meets its purpose, you develop a different point of view about these problems and learn from it.

Definition of Speech Disorder
Speech and languagedisorders refer to problems in communication and related areas such as oral motor function. These delays and disorders range from simple sound substitutions to the inability to understand or use language or use the oral-motor mechanism for functional speech and feeding. Some causes of speech and language disorders include hearing loss, neurological disorders, brain injury, mental retardation, drugabuse, physical impairments such as cleft lip or palate, and vocal abuse or misuse. Frequently, however, the cause is unknown.
Incidence
More than one million 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 impairment. This estimate does not include children who have speech/language problemssecondary to other conditions such as deafness. Language disorders may be related to other disabilities such as mental retardation, autism, or cerebral palsy. It is estimated that communication disorders (including speech, language, and hearing disorders) affect one of every 10 people in the United States.
Characteristics
A child's communication is considered delayed when the child is noticeably behindhis or her peers in the acquisition of speech and/or language skills. Sometimes a child will have greater receptive (understanding) than expressive (speaking) language skills, but this is not always the case.
Speech disorders refer to difficulties producing speech sounds or problems with voice quality. They might be characterized by an interruption in the flow or rhythm of speech, such as...