Speech sound disorders refer to difficulties with the perception, motor production, or phonological representation of speech sounds. This includes:

Articulation Disorders, which involve substitutions and distortions of specific sounds, such as difficulty producing /r/ or lisp distortion for /s/.

Phonological Disorders, which consist of patterns of sound substitutions and omissions. For example, a child may consistently omit final consonants (“house” sounds like “hou” and “bat” sounds like “ba”), regardless of the specific sound.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), which is disorder of motor speech, resulting in difficulty coordinating the muscle movements to produce words.

Speech-language pathologists will use evaluation tasks to provide a differential diagnosis and create a treatment plan to individualize therapy.

Orofacial Myofunctional Disorders (OMDs) are differences in the structure and movement patterns of the face and mouth. Signs/symptoms of OMDs may include tethered oral tissues (tongue or lip ties), oral habits, difficulty feeding or chewing, dental malocclusions, mouth breathing, sleep disordered breathing, tongue thrust, and difficulty with speech production.

OMDs may require treatment by a team of professionals, including speech-language pathologists, dentists, orthodontists, and ENTs.

Oral habits may also be addressed through a myofunctional program. An evaluation is necessary to develop the most appropriate treatment plan.

Were you in speech therapy for years as a child but regressed or never felt like you mastered that sound you worked on? It’s never too late to start again! Regression in teen and adult years may be due to underlying orofacial myofunctional disorders that went undiagnosed. With motivation and a commitment to therapy, we can work together to make sure you not only meet your goals, but maintain the skills long-term.