Generally speech problems are observed in those children who have a delayed development. Children with speech problems have some tell tale symptoms like repeating a word or phrase. A child with speech problems has low confidence levels. Children with speech problems withdraw from active social life as they feel embarrassed in speaking. Speech therapy is the only way out to redress the problem. Read on the symptoms of speech problems in children.Children who suffer from delayed development are observed to show symptoms of delayed speech development as well. It is found to occur in 5-10% amongst all children. Another interesting fact is that boys are likely to have speech disorder three to four times more compared to girls.
You Can Get a Hint that your child is having or likely to have a speech problems when you notice any or all of the following:
Rhythm Disorder
This is alternatively known as Disfluencies. The child ends up repeating the sound, word or phrase continuously while speaking or even when he is playing or just with himself. This condition is a lot akin to stuttering and doctors opine that stuttering is basically a serious version of disfluency.
Detailed Symptoms:
- This repetition of sounds, words or phrases is observed in children who are beyond four years old.
- The child displays a great degree of frustration as he is unable to communicate in the manner that he wants to. This can give rise to behavior disorder if the problem is not redressed on time.
- The child jerks his head and blinks his eyes persistently while trying to speak. This is because he tries very hard to speak properly and puts in a lot of effort in his attempt to come out clear in his utterances. This behavior can turn into a mannerism as the child grows up.
- The child also shows a great degree of embarrassment as he tries to speak. This is not only when he speaks at a public place but also within the family. He can very well understand that he is not sounding as he is expected to and that he is ending up saying the wrong way despite the fact that he is trying his best not to. This leads him to withdraw from social and personal communication and they are prone to turn into a recluse as they suffer a huge loss of confidence.
Articulation Disorder
Also known as articulation deficiency, the child makes incorrect and inappropriate sounds. He is into the habit of doing it persistently and parents often end up scolding the child thinking that they are being naughty and not following instructions. But one needs to realize that this is not a behavioral issue but a disorder that requires speech therapy.
Detailed Symptoms:
- The speech of the child remains unintelligible even when the child reaches his third year, the period when any other normal kid would have developed the basic conversation skills.
- The child shows a tendency to leave out the consonants that are at the beginning of the words when he is around three years old.
- He does the same for the consonants that are at the end of eth words when he is fours years old.
- By the time the child reaches seven, he shows continual problems in articulation.
- He is also prone to simply leave out certain sounds that are necessary in the pronunciation of certain words.
- He is also prone to distorting the sounds in general and ends up substituting the correct sound with an incorrect one, but unconsciously.
Voice Disorder
The child shows symptoms of abnormality while letting out a sound, that is, uttering a word or a phrase or saying a sentence. The loudness, pitch and quality of the same are highly away from the desired or the normal.
Detailed symptoms:
- You can notice pitch deviations in the speech of the child.
- The quality and loudness of the voice also gets deviated while the child makes a desperate attempt to speak properly.
Since one of the most primary means of communication is speech, it is indeed difficult for a child when he develops speech problems. The situation becomes all the more compounded when the speech is affected as it acts as one of the benchmarks to determine the developmental progress in a child. But a speech therapy can always help the child in overcoming this difficulty and lead a normal life with a good deal of support from his parents.
