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Apraxia of speech (AOS)—also known as acquired apraxia of speech, verbal apraxia, or childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) when diagnosed in children—is a speech sound disorder. Someone with this diagnosis has trouble saying what he or she wants to say correctly and consistently. AOS is a neurological disorder that affects the brain pathways involved in planning the sequence of movements involved in producing speech. The brain knows what it wants to say but cannot properly plan and sequence the required speech sound movements.

An articulation disorder is the inability to say certain speech sounds correctly beyond the age when the sound is typically learned. Speech sounds may be dropped, added, distorted or substituted. The changes can be severe enough to make it hard for others to understand them.

Phonological disorders focus on predictable, rule-based errors (e.g., fronting, stopping, and final consonant deletion) that affect more than one sound. It is often difficult to cleanly differentiate between articulation and phonological disorders; therefore, many researchers and clinicians prefer to use the broader term, "speech sound disorder," when referring to speech errors of unknown cause. 

Communication devices, systems, strategies and tools that replace or support natural speech are known as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). These tools support a person who has difficulties communicating using verbal speech.

Expressive language is defined as the way your child uses words to communicate thoughts or ideas.  Developmental expressive language disorder is a condition in which a child has lower than normal ability in vocabulary, saying complex sentences, and remembering words.

Children with receptive language disorder have trouble understanding language. They have trouble grasping the meaning of words they hear and see.   Receptive language disorder occurs when a child has difficulty understanding what is said to him or her.

People who stutter may have more disfluencies and different types of disfluencies. They may repeat parts of words (repetitions), stretch a sound out for a long time (prolongations), or have a hard time getting a word out (blocks).

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While everyone might stutter once in a while, stuttering becomes a speech disorder when it gets in the way of a person’s ability to communicate with others and is accompanied by negative feelings about talking. 
 

Cluttering is a speech and communication disorder characterized by a rapid rate of speech, erratic rhythm, and poor syntax or grammar, making speech difficult to understand.   Cluttering is characterized by a person’s speech being too rapid, too jerky, or both. To qualify as cluttering, the person’s speech must also have excessive amounts of “well,” “um,” “like,” “hmm,” or “so,” (speech disfluencies), an excessive exclusion or collapsing of syllables, or abnormal syllable stresses or rhythms.

Pragmatic language refers to the social language skills that we use in our daily interactions with others. This includes what we say, how we say it, our non-verbal communication (eye contact, facial expressions, body language etc.) and how appropriate our interactions are in a given situation.

Pragmatic skills are vital for communicating our personal thoughts, ideas and feelings. Children with difficulties in this area often misinterpret other peoples’ communicative intent and therefore will have difficulty responding appropriately either verbally or non-verbally.

Resonance disorders result from too much or too little nasal and/or oral sound energy in the speech signal according to ASHA. They can result from structural or functional (e.g., neurogenic) causes and occasionally are due to mislearning (e.g., articulation errors that can lead to the perception of a resonance disorder).

Resonance disorders occur due to a blockage or obstruction of airflow in the nose, mouth, or throat, which may affect the vibrations that determine voice quality. Cleft palate and swollen tonsils are two causes of resonance disorders.

Resonance disorders include the following:

• Hypernasality—occurs when there is sound energy in the nasal cavity during production of voiced, oral sounds.

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• Hyponasality—occurs when there is not enough nasal resonance on nasal sounds due to a blockage in the nasopharynx or nasal cavity.

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• Cul-de-sac resonance—occurs when sound resonates in a cavity (oral, nasal, or pharyngeal) but is “trapped” and cannot exit because of an obstruction.

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• Mixed resonance—presence of hypernasality, hyponasality, and/or cul-de-sac resonance in the same speech signal.
   

Communication concerns are one aspect of autism spectrum disorder, which involves challenges with social skills and repetitive behaviors. An individual with autism may have difficulty understanding and using words, learning to read or write, or having conversations.

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People with autism have challenges with communication and social skills. They often find it hard to have conversations and may not notice social cues. 
A person with autism may have challenges relating to others. It might seem like they are not interested in others or in making friends.

It may be hard for a person with autism to

• Share attention with someone else and focus on the same object or event

• Join in play with others and share toys

• Respond when others invite them to play or talk

• Understand how others feel
  take turns in play or in conversation

• Make and keep friends
   

Oral-motor skills refer to the movement of the muscles of the face (e.g., mouth, jaw, tongue, and lips). This includes muscle tone, muscle strength, range of motion, speed, coordination, and dissociation (the ability to move oral structures, such as the tongue and lip, independently of each other) (Kumin, n.d.). Clinical experience suggests that the acquisition and maturation of oral-motor movements underlies sound production and feeding skills (e.g., sucking, biting, and chewing) (Arvedson & Brodsky, 2002). Children with developmental disabilities may demonstrate oral-motor patterns that are not observed in typical development. Atypical oral-motor patterns include jaw thrusting, tongue thrust, tonic bite reflex, lip retraction, tongue retraction, and nasal regurgitation (Morris, 1978).