I graduated from Penn State in 2009 and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. I remained at Penn State and completed my Master of Science Degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders in 2011. My family and I are die-hard Penn State fans! I began as a speech teacher working at Bethlehem Area School District servicing two elementary schools. I relocated to Upper Perkiomen School District for the start of the 2017-2018 school year in order to work close to my home. I am married for 4 years and have one, one-year-old son.

Q: "How do I go about requesting a speech or language screening for my child?"

Articulation - the way we make speech sounds.

Children develop sounds in a sequence: Articulation Development Chart

As speech sounds develop, children will make mistakes and substitute "easier" sounds for harder ones or distort "hard" sounds to make them easier to say.

"A speech sound disorder (or articulation disorder) occurs when mistakes continue past a certain age. Every sound has a different range of ages when the child should make the sound correctly. Speech sound disorders include problems with articulation (making sounds) and phonological processes (sound patterns). " (ASHA)

Phonological Processes: Speech patterns used by children to simplify production of words. These are evident in typically developing children between the ages of 2 and 5. Phonological processes are extinguished as they are no longer needed by the child to make speech easier. All phonological processes should be eliminated by age 5(kindergarten age).

Some examples of phonological processes:

Context Sensitive Voicing - "pig" for "big"

Fronting - "tup" for "cup"

Backing - "guck" for "duck"

Final Consonant Deletion - "bo" for "boat"

Weak Syllable Deletion - "elfant" for "elephant"

Cluster Reduction - "poon" for "spoon"

Gliding - "yeg" for "leg"

Motor speech disorders: articulation errors resulting from limited ability to plan and execute the muscle movements necessary for accurate speech production.

Source: http://brighthorizonstherapy.com/links-resources/

*Adapted from Sander JSHD 1972; Smit, et al JSHD 1990 and the Nebraska-Iowa Articulation Norms Project

Language is different from speech.

Language is made of up many parts:

• Semantics- "What words mean". Semantics refers to how we understand words, organize them, and use them to convey our thoughts and ideas. (e.g., "star" can refer to a bright object in the night sky or a celebrity)
• Morphology: How to make new words (e.g., friend, friendly, unfriendly)
• Syntax - "Grammar" How to put words together (e.g., "Peg walked to the new store" rather than "Peg walk store new")
• Pragmatics - "Social skills". How we use language for different purposes, understand non-verbal cues and figurative language that add additional meaning to communication. Also includes understanding of what word combinations are best in what situations ("Would you mind moving your foot?" could quickly change to "Get off my foot, please!" if the first request did not produce results)

"When a person has trouble understanding others (receptive language), or sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings completely (expressive language), then he or she has a language disorder." (ASHA)

When a child's language skills are developing in a typical sequence, but later than normal, he or she has a language delay.

E-mail: aburns@upsd.org

Phone: 215-541-7215