Understand key terms and concepts in speech-language pathology. Whether you’re a seasoned clinician or just starting out, this glossary is here to support your learning and practice.
Acalculia is a loss of previously acquired calculation skills due to brain damage. It may occur alongside aphasia or cognitive impairment and affect functional independence.
Accent Modification helps clients improve speech clarity for personal or professional reasons. SLPs guide pronunciation training through individualized, culturally sensitive techniques.
Dysphagia in adults refers to difficulty in swallowing, encompassing problems in the oral, pharyngeal, or esophageal phases of the swallowing process. It often results from neurological conditions, structural anomalies, or systemic diseases, leading to risks like aspiration, malnutrition, and dehydration.
Affricates are consonant sounds that begin as stops and release as fricatives, with both stages produced in the same place of articulation. In English, the two affricate phonemes are /tʃ/ (as in “church”) and /dʒ/ (as in “judge”), which start with a complete closure of the articulators and then release into a turbulent, fricative-like airflow.
Alternating Motion Rates (AMRs) refer to the rapid repetition of the same syllable (e.g., “puh-puh-puh”) to assess how quickly and smoothly a person can move their articulators. It is a key clinical task for measuring articulatory speed and regularity, with abnormal AMR performance suggesting possible motor speech disorder.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes loss of voluntary muscle control, including those used for speech and swallowing.
Aphasia is an acquired language disorder caused by damage to the brain’s language regions, most commonly from stroke, that impairs the ability to understand or produce spoken, written, or gestural language. Despite intact intelligence, individuals with aphasia may have difficulty finding words, forming sentences, comprehending language, or using language appropriately in conversation.
Apraxia of Speech is a motor speech disorder resulting from neurological injury, causing difficulty in planning and programming the movements needed for accurate speech production. Individuals know what they want to say, but their speech is distorted, slow, and marked by groping and sound sequencing errors.
Articulation disorders are motor-based speech sound disorders where specific phonemes are produced incorrectly, often affecting intelligibility. Treatment targets the placement and movement of articulators through drill-based and contextualized therapy.
A neurological condition where the brain has difficulty interpreting auditory information, even though hearing sensitivity is normal, often leading to challenges with understanding speech in noise or following oral instructions.
Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition marked by persistent deficits in social communication and the presence of restricted, repetitive behaviors. Language and communication abilities vary widely, with many individuals exhibiting pragmatic language impairments and atypical speech patterns.
Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is an eating and feeding disorder characterized by restricted food intake that results in inadequate nutrition or energy, without concerns about body image or weight. It often stems from sensory sensitivities, low appetite, or fear of negative experiences like choking, leading to significant health and psychosocial consequences.
A hands-on swallowing assessment (conducted without instruments) where an SLP observes how a patient swallows different consistencies to screen for dysphagia.
A brain tumor is a mass of abnormal cells growing in the brain. Brain tumors can disrupt normal brain function; for example, a tumor in the left frontal lobe might cause speech and language problems, so individuals with brain tumors may require evaluation and therapy from an SLP to help maintain or regain communication and swallowing abilities.
Broca’s Area is a region in the left frontal lobe that controls speech production and language expression. Injury to Broca’s area (such as in Broca’s aphasia) leads to slow, labored speech with short phrases and omissions, while comprehension of language is relatively preserved, making it a key focus in speech therapy for aphasic patients.
Cerebral Palsy is a non-progressive neurological disorder that appears early in life and affects muscle control and posture due to brain damage during development.
Cheiloplasty is the surgical correction of a cleft lip. In this surgery (usually done around 3 months of age), the two sides of a split upper lip are joined together and the lip muscle is repaired, which improves feeding and helps the child form bilabial speech sounds.
Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a pediatric motor speech disorder in which children struggle to coordinate the movements necessary for intelligible speech, despite having no muscle weakness. Speech errors are highly inconsistent and often accompanied by disrupted prosody and difficulty transitioning between sounds.
Cleft lip is a congenital separation in the upper lip that can be unilateral or bilateral, often impacting feeding and early speech sound development. Surgical repair typically occurs within the first year, followed by ongoing monitoring by an SLP and cleft team.
Cleft palate is a structural defect where the roof of the mouth fails to fully close, impairing feeding and speech due to velopharyngeal insufficiency. Intervention includes surgical repair, speech therapy for resonance and articulation, and interdisciplinary follow-up.
Cluster reduction is when a child simplifies a consonant cluster by dropping one of the consonants (e.g., saying “fog” for “frog” or “nake” for “snake”). It’s a normal simplification in early speech, but children typically outgrow this pattern by about 4–5 years old as their speech matures.
Cluttering is a fluency disorder marked by an abnormally rapid and/or irregular rate of speech, often accompanied by disorganized language formulation and reduced intelligibility. Speakers who clutter produce excessive speech dysfluencies that are not typical of stuttering (e.g. mazes, filler words, word and phrase repetitions), and they frequently omit or slur sounds in longer words.
Cochlear Implants provide access to sound for individuals with severe hearing loss. SLPs support language and auditory development before and after implantation.
A cognitive-communication disorder involves difficulty using language appropriately due to impairments in attention, memory, executive function, or reasoning. Speech may be fluent and grammatically correct, but the individual struggles with organizing thoughts, maintaining topics, interpreting social cues, or adapting language to context.
A communication disorder is an impairment in the ability to understand, express, or process language and speech through spoken, written, gestural, or symbolic forms. It may affect speech production, language comprehension or use, and auditory processing, and must interfere with social, academic, or daily functioning to be clinically significant.
Neurological symptoms such as voice loss or stuttering that arise without an identifiable medical cause, often linked to psychological stress and classified under functional neurological symptom disorders.
A speech therapy method where a child learns to say a tailored set of important words consistently, used especially for treating highly inconsistent speech errors.
Variation in culture, ethnicity, and language among individuals and client populations, requiring SLPs to provide culturally responsive and linguistically appropriate services.
A developmental condition in which a child’s language abilities emerge later than expected for their age, despite following the typical sequence of language milestones. It may affect expressive, receptive, or both aspects of language.
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a neurodevelopmental condition marked by significant difficulties in acquiring and executing coordinated motor skills, which interfere with daily functioning and are not explained by other medical or intellectual conditions. It often presents in childhood as clumsiness or motor delays and frequently co-occurs with speech-language impairments, ADHD, or learning disorders.
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition marked by persistent difficulties in understanding and/or using spoken language, not attributable to hearing loss, intellectual disability, or other known conditions. It affects vocabulary, grammar, and discourse skills, often emerging in early childhood and significantly impacting academic, social, and communication development.
Distortions are speech errors in which a sound is produced in an unfamiliar or imprecise way that deviates from the norm, but it does not become a different phoneme. A common example is a lisped /s/—the sound is recognizable as an /s/ but is articulated incorrectly (e.g. with the tongue placed too far forward, causing a “th”-like quality).
Down syndrome is a genetic disorder (trisomy 21) that causes intellectual disability and speech-language delays. SLPs work to improve expressive language and intelligibility in affected individuals.
Dysarthria is a motor speech disorder caused by neurological injury or disease that weakens or disrupts the coordination of muscles used for speech. Unlike language or fluency disorders, dysarthria impairs the execution of speech movements, often resulting in slurred, strained, or breathy speech.
Dysarthria in adults is a collective term for motor speech disorders resulting from neurological impairments affecting the strength, speed, range, steadiness, tone, or accuracy of movements required for speech. It can impact respiration, phonation, articulation, resonance, and prosody.
Dysfluency is an interruption in the flow of speech, such as repetitions or hesitations. It is commonly associated with stuttering and may require speech-language intervention.
Dyskinesia is the presence of abnormal, involuntary movements that disrupt motor control. When it affects speech musculature, SLPs address its impact through dysarthria treatment and swallowing management.
Dyslexia is a reading disorder involving difficulty with word recognition and phonological decoding. It affects literacy and is often supported by SLPs through reading-based interventions.
Dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) is a disorder that disrupts the safe and efficient movement of food, liquids, or saliva through the oral, pharyngeal, or esophageal phases of swallowing. It can lead to risks such as aspiration, malnutrition, and dehydration and is commonly associated with neurological or structural impairments.
Dysphonia is a voice disorder involving abnormal vocal quality, pitch, or loudness. It often requires voice therapy from an SLP to restore healthy voice use.
Early intervention is a system of services for infants and toddlers from birth to age three who have developmental delays or are at risk, aiming to support growth across cognitive, communicative, physical, social-emotional, and adaptive domains during a critical period of brain development. Services are family-centered, delivered in natural environments, and guided by an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) under Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
A type of infant or enteral formula composed of free amino acids rather than intact or partially broken-down proteins. These are used for infants with severe allergies or GI issues such as exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, as they are easier to digest and absorb.
Executive function deficits are impairments in cognitive processes like planning, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition control, often resulting from frontal lobe damage.
Mental skills that involve managing one’s own cognition and behavior (e.g., planning, focusing attention, remembering, self-control), which are critical for organized, effective communication.
Expressive language is the ability to put thoughts into words, sentences, or other forms of communication so that others can understand. It encompasses everything from speaking and writing to gesturing, and deficits in expressive language result in difficulty communicating one’s ideas effectively.
Expressive Language Disorder involves difficulties with verbal expression, including challenges in vocabulary, sentence formation, and narrative structure. Individuals may understand language normally but have significant trouble producing grammatically and semantically appropriate speech.
An access method for communication systems where the user communicates by looking at symbols or letters on a screen, which are tracked by an eye-tracker to select messages.
FEES (Fiberoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing)
A swallowing assessment using a flexible nasoendoscope to visually examine the throat during swallowing, in order to detect aspiration and diagnose dysphagia.
The omission of a closing consonant sound at the end of a word (e.g., saying “ca” for “cat”), a normal pattern in early speech that becomes a concern if it continues past the typical age.
Fluency disorders, including stuttering and cluttering, are characterized by disruptions in the flow of speech such as repetitions, prolongations, and blocks. SLPs assess the type and severity of disfluency and provide individualized therapy to increase fluency and reduce negative communication attitudes.
Fricatives are consonant sounds produced by forcing air through a narrow constriction in the vocal tract, creating turbulent, noisy airflow. Examples in English include /f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, θ, ð, h/, which are characterized by their continuous “hissing” or “buzzing” sound quality.
Fronting is a speech process where a child substitutes sounds made in the back of the mouth with sounds made in the front (e.g., saying “tup” for “cup”). It is normal in toddlers’ speech but becomes a concern if it continues past the age when children usually outgrow it (around 4 years old).
A strategy where problematic behaviors are reduced by teaching the person a new communication method to get the same need met (e.g., requesting “all done” instead of throwing items).
A natural language development path where individuals initially learn and use language in whole, meaningful chunks or "gestalts" rather than single words.
A speech pattern where /r/ or /l/ is replaced by a glide (/w/ or /y/), as in saying “wun” for “run”; a normal process in young children’s speech that typically disappears by age 5–6.
A glottal stop is a consonant produced by briefly closing the vocal folds (glottis) and then releasing them, like the catch in the throat in the middle of “uh-oh.” In typical English speech, the glottal stop is not a distinct phoneme, but it often appears as a casual replacement or reinforcement for /t/ in certain contexts (e.g., “butter” pronounced as “bu’er”).
The set of structural rules in a language that dictates how words are formed and arranged into sentences, enabling speakers to convey complex meanings correctly.
Language intervention that focuses on teaching correct grammar usage (word forms and sentence structure), enabling clients to form sentences that follow the rules of their language.
Homonymy occurs when a child’s speech errors cause two or more different words to sound the same. For example, if a child says “tap” for “cap” and also “tap” for “sap,” the words “cap,” “sap,” and “tap” all become “tap,” making their speech difficult to understand.
Intellectual disability (ID) is a developmental condition characterized by significantly below-average intellectual functioning and deficits in adaptive behaviors that emerge before age 18.
Intelligibility is the clarity of speech as perceived by a listener. SLPs aim to increase intelligibility in clients with speech sound or motor speech disorders.
A feeding tube surgically placed directly into the jejunum (middle section of the small intestine), bypassing the stomach to provide nutrition, hydration, and medication.
A communication system that uses manual signs alongside speech to support language development and comprehension, typically signing only the most important words in a sentence.
A language disorder is an impairment in the comprehension and/or use of spoken, written, or symbolic language that affects semantics, syntax, morphology, or pragmatics. It may be developmental or acquired and can impact both expressive and receptive language across modalities.
A lateral lisp is a speech error where sibilants are produced with side airflow, creating a distorted, slushy sound. It typically requires therapy, as it does not resolve developmentally.
The Lidcombe Program is a parent-administered therapy for preschool children who stutter, guided by a speech-language pathologist. Parents give positive feedback for smooth speech and gentle correction for stuttering, leading to long-term fluency gains.
“Lisp” is a lay term for a type of speech distortion affecting the sibilant sounds (typically /s/ and /z/). A person with a lisp produces these sounds with abnormal tongue placement or airflow, often resulting in a “th” sound (interdental lisp) or a lateral slurring quality (lateral lisp) instead of a clear /s/ or /z/.
Malocclusion is a misalignment of the teeth or jaws (like crooked teeth, overbite, or underbite) that can alter the shape of the oral cavity. It may contribute to speech errors such as lisps, and treatment typically involves braces and speech therapy to improve clarity.
Mixed language disorders involve impairments in both receptive and expressive language skills across vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics. These disorders may be developmental or acquired and often require long-term, individualized intervention by SLPs.
Morphology is the study of the structure of words and how they are formed from smaller meaning-bearing units called morphemes. It examines how prefixes, suffixes, roots, and grammatical inflections combine to create words and convey meaning (e.g., understanding that “un-,” “happy,” and “-ness” form “unhappiness”).
Nasal regurgitation is when food or liquid flows into the nose during swallowing due to incomplete closure between the mouth and nasal cavity. It commonly occurs in cleft palate or velopharyngeal dysfunction and may require surgery or therapy for resolution.
The natural variation in human brain function and behavioral traits, recognizing that neurological differences are normal variations of human development rather than deficits to be fixed.
Neurogenic stuttering is acquired stuttering following neurological injury, characterized by dysfluencies across word types without adaptation effects.
A broad term for any disorder involving the central or peripheral nervous system, resulting in disruption of normal brain, spinal cord, or nerve function.
Neuromuscular diseases are disorders that impact the nerves and muscles, often leading to weakness or dysfunction in movement and coordination. These conditions can significantly affect speech production and swallowing abilities due to impaired control of the muscles involved.
Omissions (also called deletions) are speech errors where a required sound is left out entirely. An example is saying “ca” for “cat,” omitting the final /t/ sound.
Oropharyngeal Dysphagia is a swallowing disorder marked by difficulty chewing, forming, or moving the food bolus efficiently within the mouth prior to swallowing.
Palatoplasty is the surgical repair of a cleft palate, where the split in the roof of the mouth is closed so that the mouth and nose are separated. This surgery, usually done within the first year of life, helps the child feed and speak more normally by enabling the soft palate to close off the nose during swallowing and speech.
Palilalia is the compulsive repetition of a speaker’s own words or phrases. It is linked to neurological conditions and may affect fluency and clarity.
Specialized medical care focused on providing relief from symptoms and stress of serious illness, where SLPs play a role in communication and swallowing quality of life.
Parkinson’s Disease is a degenerative brain disorder that primarily affects motor control, causing symptoms like tremors, stiffness, and slowed movement.
A swallowing disorder in infants and children that affects one or more phases of the swallowing process—oral preparatory, oral, pharyngeal, or esophageal. It involves difficulties not only with the physical act of swallowing but also with feeding behaviors, and can stem from a wide array of developmental, structural, or medical causes.
Pediatric Feeding Disorder (PFD) is a condition characterized by impaired oral intake that is not developmentally appropriate and involves one or more domains of dysfunction: medical, nutritional, feeding skill, or psychosocial. It often presents as extreme food selectivity, aversion, or refusal and requires interdisciplinary evaluation and management to support growth, nutrition, and mealtime functioning.
Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in a language that can distinguish meaning between words. For example, the words “pat” and “bat” differ by one phoneme (/p/ vs /b/), and this single sound change alters the word’s meaning.
Phonological disorders are speech sound disorders in which a child has difficulty understanding and applying the sound system of a language. Unlike articulation disorders, which are motor-based and involve incorrect sound production, phonemic disorders occur at the linguistic level.
Pitch is the perceived highness or lowness (frequency) of voice determined by vocal fold vibration. SLPs address pitch abnormalities in voice therapy and gender-affirming care.
Pragmatics is the aspect of language concerned with the use of language in social contexts – essentially, it governs how we choose our words and convey meaning in real-world interactions. It includes rules for conversation (like taking turns, maintaining topics, and using language politely or appropriately for a given situation).
Receptive language is the comprehension aspect of communication – the ability to understand what others say or what one reads. It involves processing words, sentences, and meaning, and a deficit in receptive language can result in misunderstanding messages or an inability to follow along in conversation, even if hearing is normal.
Receptive Language Disorder is characterized by significant difficulty in understanding spoken, signed, or written language, despite adequate hearing and intelligence. Affected individuals may struggle to follow directions, comprehend questions, or interpret vocabulary and syntax.
