Glossary

The following glossary corresponds to the Related Terms identified in each of the Guidelines for Referral to Speech-Language Pathologists. Below are the defined related terms with a reference, noted in parentheses, indicating the specific guideline in which the term appears.

KEY
C = Cognitive-Communication
F = Fluency
L= Language
Sp = Speech
Sw = Swallowing
V = Voice

| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | L | M | N | P | R | S | T | U | V |

A

abstract information (C) - conceptual information that is not directly related to a concrete object or place, or an observable activity.

acalculia (L) - loss or decrease in the ability to understand numbers and/or perform mathematical tasks (usually due to neurological impairment).

agnosia (L) - loss or decrease in the ability to recognize familiar objects or other stimuli in the environment (usually due to neurological impairment).

agraphia (L) - loss or decrease in the ability to write (usually due to neurological impairment).

anomia (L) - loss or decrease in the ability to retrieve appropriate words, especially nouns, in speaking (usually due to neurological impairment).

anosognosia (C) - inability to perceive and recognize body parts or the presence of a disease.

aphasia (L) - loss or decrease in the ability to understand or produce language including verbal, written, and gestural (i.e., sign) language (usually due to neurological impairment).

aphonia (V) - total absence of voice; may be due to various causes

apraxia of speech (F/L/Sp) - a problem resulting from neurological difficulty in the programming of motor speech movements.

articulation (Sp) - coordinated movements of the lips, tongue, soft palate, and vocal folds for speech sound production.

aspiration (V/Sw) - taking foreign matter such as food or liquid into the lungs.

attention (C) - focusing awareness on people or other aspects of the environment.

avoidance behavior (F) - strategies used to maintain fluency by avoiding certain words or situations, or speaking to certain individual.

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B

babbling (L) - non-meaningful sounds typically produced by a young child often as vocal play; generally observed before meaningful speech.

block (F) - a stoppage in the flow of speech associated with disfluency.

breathy (V) - excessive air escape during vocalization.

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C

choking (Sw) - observable response to an airway obstruction or blockage due to residual foreign matter when swallowing; may result in suffocation or aspiration.

circumlocution (L/F) - use of paraphrase or definition to describe a word that cannot be recalled due to aphasia, or to avoid a potential disfluencies.

cluttering (F) - a fluency disorder in which the individual demonstrates rapid rate of speech and reduced awareness of the disorder; may also include impairments of articulation and language.

cognitive-communication (C) - a complex interaction between cognition (including attention, memory, reasoning, problem solving, and executive functioning) and language (the transmission of spoken, written, and nonverbal messages).

community entry/reentry (C) - systematic training to assist an individual in relearning to participate in activities in their community or neighborhood environment by specifically teaching the application of techniques and compensatory strategies from therapy in the actual environment.

concrete information (C) - information that is easily referenced and often observable in the environment (i.e., people, animals, places, objects, activities).

coughing (Sw) - protective mechanism by which an explosive expulsion of air from the lungs clears the airway; may be triggered when the individual has difficulty managing the flow of foreign matter during the swallow or when residual foreign matter remains in the throat after the swallow.

cough reflex (Sw) - change in skin color due to oxygen deprivation; may be due to difficulty in the coordination of breathing and feeding; occurs most frequently in infants.

cyanosis (Sw) - change in skin color due to oxygen deprivation; may be due to difficulty in the coordination of breathing and feeding; occurs most frequently in infants.

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D

developmental delay (C/L/Sp) - child's ability in a certain area (i.e., speech, language, or swallowing/feeding development) is not commensurate with chronological age with no known intellectual, physical or neurological cause.

developmental disfluencies (F) - child exhibits increased repetitions and/or prolongations in speech during a stage of development in which numerous speech, language, and motor behaviors are being learned simultaneously; these are considered to be normal developmental disfluencies, not stuttering.

diplophonia (V) - the production of two vocal pitches simultaneously by the ventricular folds and the vocal folds.

disfluency (F) - disruptions in ongoing speech; characterized by hesitation, interruptions, prolongagions, and repetitions; disfluencies vary by speaker and speaking situations.

dry mouth (Sw) - lack of saliva; results in difficulty gathering dry particles of chewed food into a bolus to move posteriorly in order to swallow.

dysarthria (F/Sp/Sw) - neurologically based motor speech problem due to weakness, slowness, incoordination, and a restricted range of movement of the parts of the oral and laryngeal mechanism used for speech and voice production.

dyspahgia (Sw) - difficulty in swallowing or failure to develop mature swallowing ability; can cause food to enter the airway, resulting in coughing, choking, pulmonary problems, inadequate nutrition and/or hydration with resultant weight loss.

dysphonia (V) - impairment of phonation; may be due to various causes.

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E

echolalia (L) - to unnecessarily repeat the same thing; a type of perseveration.

emotional lability (C/L) - frequently changing and/or extreme shifts in behavior; may burst into crying or bursts of temper with no forewarning or progression of increasing emotions.

esophageal speech (V) - a method of speaking used by individuals who have had their larynx removed (i.e., due to throat cancer); phonation is achieved by expelling air from the esophagus.

executive functioning (C) - using cognitive, behavioral, and communication skills in order to: know enough about oneself to know what is easy and what is difficulty to do; set reasonable goals based on this awareness; plan and organize necessary actions to meet these goals; take action toward completing the goals; correct behaviors that interfere with completing the goals; monitor success toward reaching the goals; develop strategies to resolve any short-comings, and be flexible in making plans, changes, and solutions.

external stimuli (C) - anything (in the environment) other than aspects of the individual that may rouse attention or response (i.e., light, object, smell, etc.)

eye contact (C/F) - visual contact with other person's eyes.

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F

false start (F) - individual with neurological impairment attempts to begin speaking but encounters a delay in the beginning of the motor movements for speech so speech occurs later or slower than the individual expected.

FEES - Fiberoptic Endoscopoic Evaluation of Swallowing (Sw) - the use of fiberoptic nasopharyngololaryngoscope to diagnosis aspiration; used to determine: patient's ability to protect airway for swallowing; safe dietary level and posture for feeding (to avoid aspiration); sensation in the laryngopharynx; and effectiveness of compensatory techniques for treatment.

fluency (F) - the smooth production of speech at an appropriate rate.

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G

gag reflex (Sw) - protective mechanism in which strong muscle contractions in the rear of the mouth and at the top of the throat respond to a noxious or uncomfortable stimulus.

gastrostomy tube (G-tube) (Sw) - tube used for non-oral feeding; placed either via surgical gastrostomy or percutaneous endoscopic gastronomy.

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H

hemiparesis (L) - muscular weakness or partial paralysis restricted to one side of the body.

hemiplegia (L) - paralysis of one side of the body.

hoarseness (V) - a type of dysphonia resulting from impaired vocal fold adduction; characterized by low pitch level and limited range of pitch.

homonymous hemianopsia (L) - neurologically based blindness in the same visual field (half) of each eye (i.e., the right visual field of each eye).

hyperkinetic (V) - characterized by abnormally increased motor activity (i.e., during phonation).

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I

impulsivity (C) - the tendency to act without considering the consequences.

intonation (Sp/V) - the shift in pitch during speech used to add additional meaning to the words used (i.e., a pitch rise at the end of the sentence indicates the speaker is asking a question).

intubation (Sp/Sw/V) - placing a tube into a hollow organ, such as the trachea.

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J

jargon (L/Sp) - early stage of speech and language development involving fluent unintelligible or non-meaningful speech; also used to describe one type of spoken language impairment associated with aphasia.

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L

language (L) - the ability to understand and express oneself through verbal, written, gestural (from natural hand signals to sign language), and/or alternative/augmentative communication systems.

learning disabilities (C/L) - a generic term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities. These disorders are intrinsic to the individual and presumed to be due to central nervous system dysfunction. Even though a learning disability may occur concomitantly with other handicapping conditions (e.g., sensory impairment, mental retardation, social and emotional disturbance), or environmental influences (e.g., cultural differences, insufficient/inappropriate instruction, psychogenic factors), it is not the direct result of those conditions or influences. (National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities, 1981).

loudness (V) - the intensity of sound produced by the voice (i.e., can range from soft to loud).

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M

memory (C) - the recall of learned or retained information.

modified barium swallow (MBS) (Sw) - videofluroscopic study of oral, pharyngeal, and laryngeal structures and their function during swallowing; may incorporate modifications in bolus size, texture, patient positioning, and use of compensatory maneuvers. May be essential to determine potential treatment approaches and reduction of threat of aspiration.

monotone (V) - voice with little or no variation in pitch.

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N

nasality (Sp/V) - associated with resonance of sound passing through the nasal cavity; related to hypernasality (too much nasal resonance) and hyponasality (not enough nasal resonance).

nasogastric tube (NG tube) (Sw) - feeding tube passed from the nose through the pharynx and esophagus into the stomach.

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P

paraphasia (L) - the substitution of an incorrect word for the intended one in speaking or writing; may be psychodynamically based (i.e., Freudian slip) or neurologically based (i.e., language difficulty).

perseveration (C/F/L) - continual involuntary repetition of speech (i.e., a word or phrase) or a movement (i.e., head nod or hand gesture) that is inappropriate to the situation.

phonation breaks (V) - abrupt, inconsistent loss of voice.

pitch (V) - vocal tone of the voice (i.e., can range from high to low).

pitch break (V) - the inability to sustain appropriate pitch until production (i.e., of the word, phrase, etc.) is complete.

phonological disorder (Sp) - an impairment in the production of speech sounds.

pragmatics (C/L) - the area of linguistics dealing with the relation between language use and its structure and content (i.e., the ability to pair the use of words, phrases, sentences, etc., with purposeful communication including: using greetings, understanding facial expressions and body language, and using subtleties in body language and word selection/emphasis).

prolongation (F) - the lengthening of production of a sound in a word causing a disruption of fluency, including the rhythm and/or rate of speech.

prosody (Sp/F) - the "melody" of speech including variations in pitch, timing, and loudness in syllable, word, phrase and sentence production; used to provide additional emphasis, meaning, and interest in speech.

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R

redundant responses (C) - responses in which the same exact words may not be reused, but the same information is given again.

repetition (F) - disrupting the fluency of speech by repeating a portion or an entire word or a phrase.

resonance (Sp/V) - vibration of air in cavities in proximity to a sound source, as in the nasal cavity.

revision (F) - disrupting the fluency of speech by repeating words and or phrases in order to modify aspect such as meaning, grammar, or word pronunciation.

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S

scintigraphy (Sw) - an imaging technique using radionuclide scanning during and after the ingestion of radioactive bolus with the ability to locate and measure any residuals after the swallow; performed as an adjunct to the SLP clinical evaluation because aspiration can be detected and quantified; used to determine safety and suitability for oral feeding, amount of aspiration, and the ability of the lungs to clear aspirated materials.

silent aspiration (V/Sw) - aspiration occurring in the absence or weakening of protective mechanisms such as coughing, vocal fold closure, or gagging, thus reducing observable signs of aspiration.

slurred speech (Sp) - imprecise production of the individual sounds comprising the words in connected speech; often causes speech to be difficult to understand.

sound distortion (F/Sp) - error in production of a specific sound due to imprecision; as the frequency of sound distortions and/or combined sound errors increases, speech intelligibility decreases.

sound omission (F/Sp) - a specific sound left out in word production causing a sound error; as the frequency of sound omissions and/or combined sound errors increases, speech intelligibility decreases.

sound substitution (F/Sp) - during word production, an incorrect sound is used for one of the sounds in a word, causing a sound error; as the frequency of sound substitutions and/or combined sound errors increases, speech intelligibility decreases.

speech (Sp) - the use of sounds to formulate words as a means of expression and in order to participate in communication; includes respiration, phonation, articulation, and resonance.

speech intelligibility (Sp) - the listener's ability to understand the speech of the speaker.

stammer (F) - another term for stuttering often used outside the United States.

stridor (V) - high-pitched sound associated with respiration.

structural deviation (Sp/V/Sw) - aspects of the oral and laryngeal mechanism necessary for speech, voice, and/or swallowing are missing, damaged, or malformed.

stuttering (F) - a fluency impairment; along with "normal" disfluencies of hesitations, interruptions, prolongations, and repetitions) and may include disfluencies between words such as tense pauses or noticeable tension in sound production.

swallowing (Sw) - the ability to orally manage and prepare food and liquid to transit through the mouth to the esophagus for safe, nutritious ingestion.

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T

tangential responses (C) - responses that are related to the correct answer, but do not specifically answer the question or request.

tracheostomy (Sp/Sw/V) - a surgical opening in the tracheal wall through which a tube is placed for breathing.

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U

ultrasonography (Sw) - the same procedures and transducers for most other types of real-time ultrasound imaging are used to study swallowing; non-invasive procedure with minimal risks and discomfort for infants, children, and adults best used to study swallowing in the mouth and upper throat; a disadvantage is inability to see the complete swallow or detect aspiration.

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V

velar (Sp/V) - describes the soft palate, which elevates to seal off the nasal cavity fro the mouth during speech to create various sounds, and during eating and drinking to keep food and liquid from going into the nose.

velopharyngeal incompetence (Sp/V) - in the absence of structural impairment, an inability of the soft palate and posterior nasopharyngeal wall to effectively coordinate airflow; tends to result in excessive nasal resonance.

vocal fry (V) - vocal fold vibration pattern that results in low-pitched, crackling phonation.

verbose responses (C) - responses that are unnecessarily wordy and may provide extraneous information.

videofluroscopic swallowing function study (Sw) - See modified barium swallow.

visual neglect (L) - denial or disregard of anything in the visual field; this denial or neglect results from neurological impairment.

vocal abuse (V) - using the voice inappropriately (i.e., yelling until hoarse).

vocalization (C/V/L) - sounds produced with the voice.

vocal quality (V) - the perceived condition of the voice during speech (e.g., harsh, hoarse, breathy)

voice (V) - the sound produced for speech; parameters include vocal quality, pitch, and loudness.

voice prosthesis (Sp/V) - a device used to assist in the production of voice (e.g., electrolarynx, tracheostomy valve)

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