Common Causes
Understand the various causes of speech difficulties, from physical factors to developmental concerns. Discover when to seek professional assessment and support.
Autism
Autism is perhaps the most common pervasive developmental disorder. It is a brain disorder that affects multiple areas of development including social intera...
Brain Injury
The left hemisphere of the brain controls speech and language abilities for most people. However, in approximately 25% of left-handed individuals the right s...
Cancer as a Cause of Speech Disorder
Cancer can affect many different parts of the body, but when it affects the mouth and/or larynx it can impede an individual's ability to speak. Even when cau...
Cerebral Palsy
Cerebral palsy is a medical condition that results from a brain injury that was either sustained before, during or very shortly after an individual’s birth...
Child Abuse and Speech Disorders
Child abuse can take many forms including physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional abuse. While physical abuse and sexual abuse usually leave marks on a ch...
Cleft Lip or Palate
A cleft lip and/or palate can cause significant obstacles for children's speech. However, though cleft lips and palates are fairly common around the world, t...
Dementia
Dementia is not a specific disease but instead is the term used to describe a group of symptoms that are caused by a variety of disorders and diseases in the...
Drug Abuse
Drug abuse, sometimes also called substance abuse, is a term used to describe the use of both legal and illegal drugs for non-therapeutic and/or non-medical...
Hearing Loss
Hearing is critical to the development of speech and language skills as it is through listening to others that children learn how to pronounce sounds and wor...
Neurological Disorders
Neurological disorders are disorders that affect the brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles. Many such disorders reduce the efficiency of movement as well as...
Physical Impairments
Speech difficulties and disorders are those that are related to an individual’s ability to verbally communicate. In some cases speech difficulties and diso...
Strokes
A stroke occurs when the blood flow to the brain is disrupted, usually by a blood clot, and cells of the brain die and are damaged. If the cells located in t...
Vocal Abuse or Misuse
Vocal abuse or misuse is often described as “vocal loading.” Vocal loading is a term used to describe stress put on the speech organs (mouth throat, voca...