13 signs your student may need pediatric speech therapy

13 Signs Your Student May Need Pediatric Speech Therapy

Pediatric speech therapy is essential for children with speech disorders. Thankfully, both parents and teachers can use the following signs, alongside a simple screener, to identify children in need of additional support. When left unchecked, speech issues can become only more obvious and intrusive, but with prompt intervention from a speech pathologist, many children grow up with only a memory of the speech issue they once had. 

Could a child in your life benefit from seeing a pediatric speech therapist? This blog outlines signs to watch for, and ways to advocate for children in and out of the classroom. 

Identify The Need for Pediatric Speech Therapy: 13 Key Signs

Speech therapy for children is essential, so identifying any of these symptoms can help your student receive help sooner. Recognizing when a child could benefit from a pediatric speech therapist can make all the difference in their time at school. 

Signs of Stuttering

Many children with a stutter outgrow it, but for 1 in 4 children, it may become a life-long condition. The best way to prevent this? By helping children work with an SLP early on, and preferably in-home or in-school, so that they form a positive association with communicating, fostering confidence and reducing anxiety about speaking.

Stuttering is the most common type of speech issue, and this disfluency can have symptoms that include:

• Repeating sounds, parts of words, whole words, or phrases after the age of four
• Making words longer by lengthening syllables
• Interjecting extra sounds or words (e.g., “We went to the….uh….game.”)
• Having tension in the voice or when making certain sounds
• Pausing during a word or sentence, often with the lips together
• Being embarrassed by speech
• Getting frustrated when attempting to communicate. 

Signs of an Articulation vs Phonological Disorder

With an articulation disorder, children have a hard time making certain sounds. Sounds (like “s,” “l,” or “r”) may be consistently changed or distorted, and the child’s speech may have so many errors that anyone outside their family may have a hard time understanding. 

Phonological disorders involve difficulties in the sound system of language and the patterns of speech sounds. Children with phonological disorders may leave out, substitute, or distort sounds when forming words. This can include omitting the first or last sound of a word (often consonants) or changing sounds within words, even if they can pronounce the same sound correctly for different words.

As for phonological disorders, symptoms of these speech issues include:

• Voice breaking in or out
• Hoarseness or raspiness to the voice
• Having a voice that is too loud or too soft
• Sudden changes in voice pitch
• Running out of air during a sentence
• Odd-sounding speech from too much or too little air passing through the nose 

Teachers can play a crucial role in identifying speech disorders; parents may not realize that the way their child communicates is not age-appropriate, but teachers can use their exposure to many children of the same age to identify when a child’s speech is not at the level it should be.

Speech Therapy for Children: Common Speech Disorders

Stuttering may be the first speech problem you think of, but it’s far from the only one; there are three key areas of speech—articulation (the production of speech sounds), voice (quality of resonance, loudness, or pitch), and fluency (the flow and rhythm of speech)—and a speech issue can involve any of these three areas. 

The common speech disorders include: 

• Articulation Disorders: Difficulty producing sounds clearly.
• Disfluency: Disorders in which someone repeats a sound, word, or phrase. Stuttering is one type of disfluency.
• Phonological Disorders: When a child does not use some or all speech sounds to form words at an age-appropriate level.
• Voice Disorders (Resonance Disorders): Problems with pitch, tone, volume, and other vocal qualities.

While there is a range in the types of speech disorders and the elements of speech they affect, all four categories can disturb a child’s ability to communicate with others, which dramatically influences their livelihood. 

‍8% of children aged 3-17 have a communication disorder that lasts longer than a week, yet only 55% receive an intervention service, emphasizing the importance of connecting children with a speech-language pathologist (SLP). 

How Teachers can to Support Students with Speech Issues

Children with speech issues may have trouble reading, writing, or speaking aloud, which can hinder their academic success and personal validation. 

Children with speech difficulties may feel stressed and anxious, especially when talking aloud, and may speak slowly or have a hard time talking and expressing themselves in general. When the challenges become overwhelming, children may act out, as that may seem like the only way they can successfully handle their emotions and communicate their needs.

Imagine if you couldn’t put the words together to express what you want, or if you spoke and spoke but no one could understand you. These are the challenges that kids with speech issues can face every day—when you place yourself in their shoes, it’s easy to see how they can become frustrated. 

If you notice a speech issue, and it’s severe enough that the student has a hard time completing their classwork, they may benefit from an individualized education program (IEP) or 504 education plan. These programs may call for the child to work with a speech-language pathologist during the school day, with a frequency that depends on the severity of their condition. 

The best thing teachers can do is advocate for parents to obtain dedicated speech assistance for students. However, there are also many ways to make the classroom more inclusive to students with speech issues:

• Change Seating: If you have a child in your classroom who has speech issues, move them closer to you. This makes it easier for you to help them with any questions they have. Since speech problems may also be accompanied by hearing difficulties, being closer allows the student to hear you better.
• Monitor Understanding: When giving instructions, check in with the student to ensure they write down the assignment correctly and understand what needs to be done. This can save them a lot of frustration from not knowing what to do or completing the assignment incorrectly and then needing to start over. 
• Substitute Oral Presentations: The thought of giving an oral presentation in front of the class may cause extreme anxiety in a student with speech issues because of their fear of articulating their thoughts correctly and, depending on their age, of their classmate’s response to their speech struggles. It can be helpful to offer a written paper or project in place of an oral presentation. To further avoid singling them out, you could offer both options for your entire class—oral presentation or written paper—and let each child choose which they would prefer. 
• Offer Extra Time: Those with speech issues may take longer to complete tasks, and you can help them by giving them extra time to complete the assignment. This way, they are not stressed about the time limit, which is especially important since stress can exacerbate speech struggles. 
• Utilize Technology: Technology is transforming the academic landscape, and teachers can use it to help children with speech disorders. In addition to providing a way for kids to more easily type out their thoughts, technology also allows for voice recognition, which can help if you’re struggling to understand your student. 

Helping Children with Speech Issues

When children have speech issues, they may become frustrated, embarrassed, or withdrawn. They’re struggling with a key part of expressing their identity, and they need help to overcome it. 

Teachers can help by knowing the signs of speech issues and flagging them to parents or the school’s speech services. Teachers can also  modify classrooms to make them more accessible to children with speech issues. Ultimately, children will benefit most from working with licensed SLPs to help them fully hone their speech skills.

Coral Care is here to help create a successful classroom environment, by matching students with licensed SLPs, OTs, and PTs. If you have students who could benefit from at-home care, Coral Care partners with schools to offer free screeners and resources to parents and teachers alike.  

Learn more about partnering with Coral Care.