Speech Therapy Research Paper

“I couldn't speak well. I went to speech therapy for 10 years. And I was sort of frustrated in that sense” (Walter Dean Myers). Speech therapy can be very frustrating at times, especially if a child is working hard and doing all of the exercises they are told will help them, and just don’t seem to be getting any better. Many of the children who are in speech therapy already feel embarrassed, and they do not need the feeling of frustration added to what they already have to face every day. These children can feel overwhelmed and even defeated at times. These feelings of defeat and annoyance happen quite often when Speech-Language Pathologists, SLPs, use non-speech oral motor exercises, abbreviated as NSOMEs, or mouth exercises that do not …show more content…
Take, for example, cleft lip or cleft palate. Cleft Palate is a very serious disorder that requires surgery for correction. Even after correction, those with cleft palate still have speech trouble and are never totally normal. Cleft Palate is a physical defect that typically causes VPI, or Velopharyngeal Insufficiency. “VPI is... inadequate closure of the Velopharyngeal Port.” This port is needed for both speaking and swallowing. So, someone with a VPI will usually have a very difficult time speaking because of a phonation problem, or a problem with making certain sounds and saying certain words, due to insufficient Velopharyngeal Closure or VPC (Blavati). When cleft palate or the Velopharyngeal Deficiency is repaired, many children have trouble with speech and sound coming out of their nose. There are different exercises and practices that have to be used to ensure that does not happen, but blowing in horns or doing other types of non-speech exercises is not going to prevent sound from coming out of the nose. The only way that will be improved, is working with actual speech and helping the children know exactly how it should work. Many of these children need speech therapy and when they go, Speech-Language Pathologists, or SLPs, try to treat them using motor exercises. Most people think that people with cleft palate will benefit from this treatment, but they do not. Children with this disorder do not have muscle weakness or any problems with their muscle tone. They just have trouble speaking (Bowen). They need improvement in making and forming the correct sounds, not strengthening muscles. You can’t improve a speech disorder by blowing bubbles, moving the tongue from side to side, puffing out the cheeks, smiling, frowning, and swallowing. It takes working on sounds and shaping your mouth. If non-speech oral motor exercises do not help with physical defects, then they are not