What is Speech and Language?

What is the meaning of speech and language? Parents, teachers, and caregivers often don’t realize that there is a difference between the two. To make it easy to remember, I often offer an association: Speech refers to Sounds and Language refers to Learning.

Articulation and Phonology are considered to be speech sound disorders. When a person is diagnosed with one of these disorders, it means that they are not producing certain sounds, produce the sounds in error, or produce the sounds in a distorted manner. Some causes of articulation and phonological disorders include: delays in development, hearing loss, ear infections, genetic syndromes, neurologic disorders, and acquired brain injuries. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (i.e., ASHA), provides further information here.

Language delays can occur when a child is not developing language at the appropriate rate. In other words, the child may not be achieving milestones such as cooing, babbling, speaking first words, using phrases/sentences, etc., when other neurotypical infants/children are. 

The term language disorder indicates that the individual has difficulty acquiring and using language, whether it be sign language or oral language. When an individual has a language disorder, academics are often difficult for him as he has difficulty understanding classroom instructions, directions to complete tasks, and basic and embedded concepts. ASHA provides more information here.

If you feel as though your child or someone you know may have a speech and/or language disorder, talk to your pediatrician and ask for a referral to a speech-language pathologist. It’s always best to rule it out when in doubt.