speech defect
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speech defect,
any condition that interferes with the mental formation of words or their physical production. Speech defects in children generally become apparent in the early school years. Speech problems may arise from organic or functional abnormalities, but in practice the two are often hard to differentiate. Organic defects include deafness, cleft palatecleft palate,incomplete fusion of bones of the palate. The cleft may be confined to the soft palate at the back of the mouth; it may include the hard palate, or roof of the mouth; or it may extend through the gum and lip, producing a gap in the teeth and a cleft lip, which is
..... Click the link for more information. , dental abnormalities, and brain damage; most functional problems are basically psychological. Speech defects are generally categorized as disorders of sound production; disorders of voicing, e.g., loudness, pitch, and quality deviations; disorders of rhythm, such as stuttering and stammering; and disorders of language formulation and expression, including aphasiaaphasia
, language disturbance caused by a lesion of the brain, making an individual partially or totally impaired in his ability to speak, write, or comprehend the meaning of spoken or written words.
..... Click the link for more information. , the inability to use words as symbols of ideas. Treatment of a speech defect may include correction of organic conditions, psychotherapy, and training in proper articulation; it is rarely limited to a single type of therapy.