A description and classification of the common disorders of speech in children.

The full assessment of children suffering from speech defects requires a team consisting of speech therapist, paediatrician, psychologist and otologist. The additional services of a phonetician, neurologist, orthodontist, plastic surgeon, radiologist, social worker or psychiatric social worker and child psychiatrist are often helpful. Unfortunately the majority of descriptions and classifications of speech disorders in childhood are by speech therapists working without much medical co-operation and advice. With honourable exceptions, they tend to regard speech disorders as rather isolated phenomena, dissociated from the other behavioural and psychological characteristics of the child. In the present paper an attempt is made to describe and classify the disorders of speech most frequently encountered in a hospital speech clinic from the point of view of the paediatrician of a diagnostic team.