Problems we help

Difficulty with voice is also known as voice disorder or dysphonia. Difficulties with voice include pitch differences, rate, resonance, volume and voice quality that is not normal for the child’s, age and gender.

Find out more about some of the specific voice problems we help at SLT for Kids. This is not an exhaustive list of problems we are able to treat.

Voice difficulties can arise in children in many different forms. Sometimes difficulties with voice may result in a child only being able to speak in small amounts as it is painful, other times it may just be the that the child’s voice has a hoarse like quality. Difficulties with voice can lead to reduced communication and participation in daily activities.

Our speech and language therapists can provide assessments to establish what difficulties your child is experiencing and their potential cause. Our speech and language therapists will use the information from the assessment to create a therapy programme suited to your child’s difficulties. Speech and language therapy can educate a child on how to use their voice properly to stop further damage in the future.

Voice is the sound that is made when you speak. The sound is made by air pushing up from the lungs to the larynx (voice box), where the air makes the vocal folds vibrate causing a sound to be released. The sound then moves up into to the oral cavity to be articulated into a speech sound. Difficulties with voice can occur at any level of voice production and with any feature.

Voice difficulties can often impact a child’s communication. Difficulties with voice can result in the child having a reduced ability to communicate their wishes, interact with peers and adults, as well as the ability to participate in activities at school. Voice difficulties also impact a child’s choices of recreation and well as their ability to express their personality. Voice difficulties are also known to create frustration and anger in children as well as a decreasing self-esteem.

Voice difficulties in children can exist for many different reasons; mostly it is down to the misuse and abuse of their voice. However, some voice difficulties are the result of psychogenic or organic conditions. Our speech and language therapists regularly assess and give therapy for children with:

• Gastro-oesophageal reflux
• Vocal cord papillomatosis
• Vocal cord paralysis
• Laryngomalacia
• Chronic laryngitis- result of excessive dust and fumes
• Excessive throat clearing or coughing that may be the result of long-term allergies
• Laryngeal web
• Anatomical make up of child’s larynx
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Personality disorder
• Mutational falsetto (puberphonia)
• The Globus symptom (recurring feeling of a big lump in the throat)
• Transgender voice

A child’s voice can be impacted upon by several conditions such as the ones listed above. Our speech and language therapists aim to improve your child’s voice functioning in order to improve their quality of life. Our speech and language therapists aim to create a therapy programme to suit your child’s needs, strengths, motivations and goals.

If your child is struggling to use their voice, or if their voice sounds different to what it used to be, our speech and language therapists can provide assessments and therapy to improve their voice function and in turn increase their social communication and interaction.

Our speech and language therapists will provide a detailed assessment and continuous therapy for voice difficulties. If you think that your child has difficulty using their voice, or their voice sounds atypical, or you have been alerted to this from school, then please email office@sltforkids.co.uk or call 0330 088 2298.