Glossary

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Severe Speech and Physical Impairments(also: SSPI)

A classification describing individuals who have significant limitations in both speech production and physical movement, often co-occurring in conditions such as cerebral palsy. People with SSPI may have little or no functional speech and limited fine motor control, which…

Sign Language Phonology

The study of the smallest meaningful units that make up signs in signed languages, analogous to phonemes in spoken languages. In American Sign Language, signs are composed of phonological parameters including handshape, movement, location (place of articulation), and non-manual…

Single-Case Study(also: Single-Subject Design, Single-Case Experimental Design, N-of-1 Study)

A research methodology in which an individual participant serves as their own control, with systematic measurement of behavior across different conditions such as baseline and intervention phases. The ABA design — where A represents baseline and B represents intervention — is a…

Social Communication(also: Social-Communication, Pragmatic Communication)

The use of language and nonverbal behavior in social contexts, encompassing skills such as taking turns in conversation, adjusting communication style based on the listener or situation, understanding nonliteral language, and interpreting social cues. Difficulties with social…

Speech Delay(also: Language Delay, Delayed Speech)

A condition in which a child does not develop speech and language skills at the expected rate for their age. Speech delay can affect the production of sounds (articulation), the ability to form words and sentences (expressive language), or the understanding of language…

Speech Disfluency(also: Disfluent Speech, Non-Fluent Speech)

Any interruption to the normal flow of speech, including repetitions of sounds or words, prolongations of sounds, blocks (involuntary pauses), interjections, and revisions. While everyone experiences occasional disfluency, persistent speech disfluency conditions such as…

Speech Sound Disorder(also: SSD, Speech Disorder, Articulation Disorder)

A communication disorder affecting the development of accurate speech sound and prosody production in childhood. Children with SSDs struggle with phonological representation, phonological awareness, and print awareness, which can lead to difficulties learning to read and impact…

Speech Therapy(also: Speech-Language Therapy, Speech Pathology, Speech-Language Intervention)

Clinical intervention provided by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, communication, and swallowing disorders. For speech sound disorders, effective treatment requires "frequent, high-intensity, individualized, and naturalistic"…

Speech and Language Therapy(also: SLT, Speech-Language Pathology, SLP)

A healthcare discipline focused on assessing and treating communication difficulties including speech, language, voice, fluency, and swallowing disorders. Speech and language therapists work with people who stammer, those with dysarthria, aphasia, and other conditions affecting…

Speech-Like Vocalization(also: SLV)

A sound produced by a person that can be phonetically transcribed based on the conventions of a spoken language, distinguishing it from non-speech-like vocalizations such as grunts, screeches, or vocal stereotypies. In speech development research, particularly for nonverbal or…

Speech-language pathology(also: SLP, Speech therapy, Speech-language therapy)

Speech-language pathology is the clinical discipline concerned with the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of communication and swallowing disorders, including speech sound production, language comprehension and expression, voice, fluency, and cognitive-communication skills.…

Stammering(also: Stuttering, Stammer, Stutter)

A neurological condition that affects the rhythmic flow of speech, causing involuntary repetitions, prolongations, or blocks of sounds, syllables, or words. Blocking describes audible or silent moments when a person is unable to produce a specific sound despite intending to.…

Synthetic Phonics(also: Phonics, Systematic Phonics)

A method of teaching reading that emphasises learning the sounds (phonemes) associated with letters and letter combinations, then blending those sounds together to form words. Unlike analytic phonics, which starts with whole words and breaks them down, synthetic phonics builds…

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