Speech and Language

Disorders Common in
Young Children
by: Owen Flanagan

 Motor Planning
• Motor Planning is the process of how we learn to accomplish fine
and gross motor skills. When we learn a motor skill we attempt to
replicate through observation, then create a synaptic “map” so we
can continuously replicate the appropriate result.

• We learn our motor skills from observation. Our brains coordinate

our muscles to emulate a given task, then collect feedback to assess
how well we performed the task or not. A motor planning disorder
occurs when there is a disruption or absence of that feedback.
 Apraxia of Speech
• Apraxia of speech is a motor
planning disorder pertaining to
speech and sound replication.

• Children with this type of

apraxia may be able to
replicate words/sounds/say
what they are trying to say, but
be unable to create the neural
path needed to do it again.
 Phonological Disorder
• Phonological disorder is a disorder in a subject’s speech sounds and
has to do with a neurological failure to connect certain sounds to a
given meaning or relevance.

• Children by age 4 have mostly learned all of their essential sounds used
to construct words. The easier sounds are ones like the “p” sound “w”,
“m” etc. The more difficult ones tend to be sounds like “th”, “v”, or “z”.

• Children that suffer from phonological disorders will often omit,

mispronounce, or invert certain sounds in words. (Book becomes “boo”
because of difficulty with the K sound)
 Fluency/Disfluency
• Fluency/Disfluency disorders in speech are characterized
on the whole as simple stuttering. It could also manifest
itself as other verbal ticks that impair speech and
understanding.

• Stuttering could manifest for a number of reasons. It

could be a symptom of a neurological disorder, it could be
developmental disorder in the child (like apraxia or
phonological disorder), or it could be a symptom of a
psychological condition like PTSD or anxiety.