Differential Diagnosis and Treatment of Children with Speech Disorder (PDF)

Paediatric speech and language therapists are challenged by
diminished resources and increasingly complex caseloads. The new
edition addresses their concerns. Norms for speech development are
given, differentiating between the emergence of the ability to
produce speech sounds (articulation) and typical developmental
error patterns (phonology). The incidence of speech disorders is
described for one UK service providing crucial information for
service management.

The efficacy of service provision is evaluated to show
that differential diagnosis and treatment is effective for children
with disordered speech. Exploration of that data provides
implications for prioritising case loads. The relationship between
speech and language disorders is examined in the context of
clinical decisions about what to target in therapy.

New chapters provide detailed intervention programmes for
subgroups of speech disorder: delayed development, use of atypical
error patterns, inconsistent errors and development verbal
dyspraxia.

The final section of the book deals with special
populations: children with cognitive impairment, hearing and
auditory processing difficulties. The needs of clinicians working
with bilingual populations are discussed and ways of intervention
described. The final chapter examines the relationship between
spoken and written disorders of phonology.