By Abel Lei
Not long ago in The Foreign Exchange we became acquainted with two new careers in field of cognitive science, audiology and speech-language pathology. However, we only got a general idea that an audiologist takes care of our ears and a speech-language pathologist deals with language. It is not hard to comprehend what trouble our ears may have and the problems an audiologist must cope with. But what about the language part? A speech-language pathologist (SLP) covers a wider range of language-related issues far beyond our imagination. Human beings are the only living creatures that use languages. The process involved in mastering a language is so complicated that we have to be intelligent and equipped with appropriate anatomical structures. Utilizing a language is not just uttering sounds. In brief, the whole process consists of perception, comprehension, and production. Any mistake that happens at any stage will cause a serious failure in speech. An SLP is able to detect the failures that occur in these process and to solve the problems. Therefore, as the name speech-language suggests, an SLP’s job can be divided into two parts, language comprehension and speech production. Problems related to language comprehension include children’s and adult’s language disorders. Since language acquisition is accomplished through one’s intellectual development, children’s language disorders are different from those of an adult. Children’s language disorders usually result from language development delay, a slower language development compared to normal children. The reasons for development delay includes autism and cerebral palsy, both concerning the dysfunction of brain that affects’ children’s ability to produce oral language. Adult language disorders occur under similar circumstances. Aphasia, loss of language ability owing to brain injury, is the main cause of adult language disorders. Sometimes people who suffer from dementia, loss of mental ability, also have a problem in their language ability. Because language disorders usually result from brain damage, an SLP has to be familiar with the structure and function of the brain, just like neurologists and psychologists. For most of us, to utter a word is a piece of cake. Yet in order to speak a word, our brains have to command a number of different parts of our bodies to cooperate perfectly, including respiration, phonation, articulation, and resonance. An SLP copes with speech disorders stemming from problems in this mechanism, and the problems can be categorized into four groups. The first one is voice disorder, which is due to the impairment of the phonation system or sometimes to inappropriate breathing. Secondly, an SLP might encounter phonological disorders. The factors which may affect normal sounds or tones are numerous, but the problems result from incorrect articulation or abnormal oral structure. Motor speech disorder is the third type that vexes SLPs the most. It is easy to infer that people who suffer from motor speech disorders have great difficulty in the motion of speech. The best illustration is dysarthria, a kind of motor speech disorder due to the disharmony between the nerve and muscle systems. However, this is different from stuttering, which is always caused by psychological factors. The last one is dysphagia, a kind of disorder resulting from difficulty in swallowing, the physiological structure of which overlaps that of speech. No matter what kind of language or speech disorder, the problems SLPs have to solve are not as simple as replacing a broken wheel. In many cases, SLPs take charge of the job of rehabilitation. They teach patients with aphasia how to speak after cerebral surgery, correct patients’ articulation after the operation of a cleft lip, and help autistic kids communicate with therapists. Therefore, teamwork with other professionals is necessary for SLPs to achieve successful therapy. A team consists of SLPs, audiologists, neurologists, psychologists, oto-rhino-laryngologists, and even teachers with a special education background. In America, such teamwork has become a trend in various fields. However, the development of speech-language therapy is just in its infancy. We don’t even have an official license for an SLP, let alone a team of professionals. I hope this will be rectified soon. #Volume 8 Issue 2#people a
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May 2024
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