Speech therapy is about speech disorders, ways to prevent them, and identifying and eliminating them using special training and education. It is one of the sections of special pedagogy. Speech therapy studies the causes, mechanisms, symptoms, course, the structure of speech disorders, and the system of corrective action. Speech therapy considers speech disorders from the standpoint of prevention and overcoming using specially organized training and education, therefore it is referred to as special pedagogy.
The structure of modern speech therapy is preschool, school speech therapy, and speech therapy for adolescents and adults. The main goal of speech therapy is to develop a scientifically based system of training, education, and re-education of people with speech disorders, as well as the prevention of speech disorders.
Based on the definition of speech therapy as a science, the following tasks can be distinguished:
1. The study of the ontogenesis of speech activity in various forms of speech disorders.
2. Determination of the prevalence, symptoms, and degree of manifestations of speech disorders.
3. Identification of the dynamics of spontaneous and directed development of children with impaired speech activity.
4. The study of the features of the formation of speech and speech disorders in children with various developmental disabilities
5. Elucidation of the etiology, mechanisms, structure, and symptoms of speech disorders.
6. Development of methods for pedagogical diagnosis of speech disorders.
7. Systematization of speech disorders.
8. Development of principles, differentiated methods, and means of eliminating speech disorders.
9. Improving methods for the prevention of speech disorders. 10. Development of issues of organization of speech therapy assistance.
