Speech Therapy: What is it? Types, and Treatments

What is Speech Therapy?

Speech therapy is an intervention service that aims to help children with communication difficulties, both verbal and nonverbal. These services are provided by speech therapists, often known as Speech and Language Pathologists (SLPs).

People with speech impairments can receive help from speech therapy since it improves their ability to communicate and removes the stigma associated with their condition. Correct speech is one of the primary goals of speech therapy, along with learning to pronounce words correctly and building up speech muscles.

Speech therapy can help with a wide range of communication issues, from something as minor as a raspy voice to as severe as a complete inability to communicate after suffering brain damage. Depending on the type of disorder, added medical or psychological interventions may be needed.

Types of Speech Therapy

1. Articulation Therapy

Articulation Disorders are problems with making sounds in sentences or saying words in a way that makes the listeners hard to understand. A kid with this speech disorder may change, omit, distort, or add word sounds. For example: They may substitute ‘thith’ instead of ‘this,’ ‘tat’ instead of ‘cat’, etc…

Speech-language pathologists use articulation therapy to help people who have trouble articulating different sounds properly. They do this by demonstrating how the articulators should be placed.

2. Speech therapy for Aphasia

Aphasia is a condition in which a person has trouble communicating due to brain damage. Listening, reading, and writing impairments are also the possible symptoms. Adults who have had a stroke often end up with aphasia.

Speech therapists are particularly important in diagnosing aphasia since they assess a person's ability to understand others, explain themselves, and even swallow the food.

3. Fluency Therapy

Fluency therapy helps people who have trouble with the speed, consistency, or flow of their speech. Fluency problems can make it hard to communicate and affect the overall quality of life. Speech therapists use different methods, such as the extension technique, the modified airflow technique, the lilypad technique, etc... to treat this kind of disorder.

4. Voice Therapy

A voice disorder is when the voice has problems with pitch, tone, volume, and other traits. Professionals trained in speech-language pathology play a vital role in the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of voice abnormalities.

5. Speech Therapy for Swallowing Difficulty

Speech therapy methods can also be used to help people who have trouble swallowing when they eat or drink. There are several reasons why a child might have trouble eating. A speech therapist might be able to help a child who has trouble eating by giving them exercises to make their mouths stronger, make their tongues move more, and help chew better.

6. Speech Therapy for Late Talkers

A popular speech therapy method is used to help children who have reached the age when they should have started talking but have not. Your child may be referred to a speech therapist if they have not started talking by the time they should have started. To get your child to open up and talk, the therapist may engage in some playful interaction with him. Sometimes, depending on the situation, taking away a toddler's favourite toy until he or she begs for it can get them talking.

7. Speech Therapy for Apraxia

People with apraxia have trouble speaking certain words and making certain sounds. In this problem, the person knows what to say or talk, but words do not seem to come out. The speech language pathologist figures out the main reason by using a variety of assessment methods, such as an oral motor assessment, a melody of speech assessment, and a speech sound assessment.

8. Speech Therapy for Stuttering

Stuttering is a problem that usually starts in childhood but may also develop in adults. Stuttering is generally seen as a type of behavioural problem. Speech therapists will try to teach your child who stutters how to change their behaviour, which may help them control their stuttering.

 A popular way to help your child with stuttering is to teach them how to slow down their speech, since speaking too quickly can make some people's stuttering even worse.

Treatment for Speech Therapy

Methods used in speech therapy for treatment include:

• Activities that train the vocal cords to make specific sounds and increase fluency of speech.
• Advice for people who need speech therapy. It might be their parents, other close family members and friends.
• Perception activities, such as learning to tell the difference between sounds and syllables.
• Facilitation of verbal exchange by various means (e.g., communication boards, voice output devices, etc.)
• Vocal, respiratory, and swallowing exercises
• Incorporating these changes into regular life

For the treatment to work in the long term, it is important to practise the techniques at home daily. To deal with any speech related disorders, make sure to reach out to a Speech and Language Pathologist (SPL). Reach out to professional speech therapists on HealthSy if you feel that you or your loved ones need help and support. HealthSy provides quality home-based speech therapy consultations and therapies through its partners in 12 major cities such as Chennai, Coimbatore, New Delhi, Noida, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kochi, Kolkata, Vizag, Gurugram, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.