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A communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, language impairment or voice impairment, may adversely affect an individual's educational performance. Students are classified as speech impaired if their speech patterns are different from normally accepted speech patterns. These speech disorders are very common among people who are hearing impaired, have cerebral palsy, have sustained severe head injuries or have a cleft palate.
More specifically, speech/language disabilities take many forms:
- The student's flow of speech is interrupted by "whole word" repetition.
- The student exhibits secondary characteristics while speaking (eye blinking, flaring of nostrils, jerky body movements and limited eye contact).
- The student has difficulty with topic initiation, maintenance or closure.
- The student has difficulty understanding nonliteral forms of speech such as idioms, proverb metaphors, etc.
- The student's speech patterns cause unfavorable listener reaction.
- The student's voice quality causes unfavorable listener reaction.
Examples of accommodations:
- Be patient when the student is communicating. It may take more time to get his or her point across but do not jump in to fill in the sentence or thought for the student.
- Maintain good eye contact when the student is trying to communicate.
- Give the student a chance to speak in class, but do not force it.
- Treat the student naturally. A speech impairment does not mean the student is not intelligent or cannot hear, so do not exaggerate communications with him or her.
- Allow the student to give presentations one-on-one, if necessary. If this is not possible, offer an appropriate alternative.
- Allow withdrawals or incomplete for special circumstances directly related to disability.
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