Speech and language impairment refers to a communication disorder in which normal speech is disrupted. This may include stuttering, impaired articulation, and a language impairment that affects the child.A speech impairment affects spoken language. Examples of these may include repetition of sounds and words, the inability to say sounds properly and speech may be difficult to understand. A language impairment affects the understanding of language.
When a person is unable to produce speech sounds correctly or fluently, or has problems with his/her voice, then he/she has a speech disorder. difficulties pronouncing sounds, or articulation disorders and stuttering are common examples of speech disorders.
When a person has trouble understanding others (receptive language). or sharing thoughts, ideas and feelings completely (expressive language) then he/she has a language disorder. Both children and adults can have speech and language disorders. They can occur as a result of a medical problem or have no cause at all.
SLI (Speech and Language Impairment) is used to refer to problems in the acquisition and use of language, typically in the context of normal development. Whether it refers to individuals with normal overall cognitive development is controversial.
Individuals with SLI exhibit problems in combining and selecting speech sounds of language into meaningful units (phonological awareness). These problems are different to speech impairments that arise from difficulties in coordination of oral-motor musculature.
Symptoms include the use of short sentences, and problems producing and understanding syntactically complex sentences. SLI is also associated with an impoverished vocabulary, word finding problems, and difficulty learning new words, whereas the basic tasks for development of phonology and syntax are completed in childhood, vocabulary continues to grow in adulthood.
