What are the types of speech?

From the Guidelines

Speech can be broadly categorized into several types, including informative, persuasive, demonstrative, entertaining, and ceremonial speech, with each type serving different communication goals and requiring specific techniques to be effective. When considering the types of speech, it's essential to understand the purpose and delivery of each type, as well as the potential impact of speech disorders on communication. According to the guidelines for adult stroke rehabilitation and recovery from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association 1, motor speech disorders, such as dysarthria and apraxia of speech, can significantly affect an individual's ability to communicate effectively. The main types of speech include:

• Informative speech, which aims to educate audiences about specific topics
• Persuasive speech, designed to convince listeners to adopt a particular viewpoint or take action
• Demonstrative speech, which shows how to do something
• Entertaining speech, meant to amuse audiences
• Ceremonial speech, delivered at special occasions like weddings or graduations Other important classifications include:
• Impromptu speech (delivered with little preparation)
• Extemporaneous speech (prepared but delivered with natural conversational quality)
• Manuscript speech (read verbatim from prepared text)
• Memorized speech (recited from memory) Understanding these speech types and their potential limitations due to speech disorders, such as those resulting from stroke, can help speakers select the appropriate approach for their audience and purpose, allowing them to craft messages that achieve their intended outcomes, whether informing, persuading, demonstrating, entertaining, or commemorating important events 1.

From the Research

Types of Speech

• There are several types of speech, including fluent and non-fluent primary progressive aphasia (PPA) 2.
• Non-fluent PPA is characterized by a gradual decline in grammar and motor speech, resulting from selective degeneration of speech-language regions in the brain 3.
• Fluent PPA, on the other hand, is marked by greater impairment of confrontational naming and loss of single word comprehension, with patients exhibiting semantic paraphasic errors and loss of single word comprehension 2.
• Progressive non-fluent aphasia (PNFA) is a coherent, well-defined syndrome, with varieties such as logopaenic progressive aphasia and progressive apraxia of speech being points in a space of continuous variation within PNFA 4.
• Primary progressive apraxia of speech (PPAOS) and progressive agrammatic aphasia (PAA) are not completely distinct syndromic entities, but rather constitute a clinical continuum 5.

Characteristics of Speech Types

• Non-fluent speech is often characterized by slow speech, grammatical and speech sound errors, and a simplification of spoken syntax 4.
• Fluent speech, on the other hand, is marked by greater fluency, but with impairments in confrontational naming and single word comprehension 2.
• Patients with non-fluent PPA often exhibit phonological speech errors, while those with fluent PPA exhibit semantic paraphasic errors 2.
• The degree to which speech is affected can be independent of the severity of other cognitive deficits 4.

Treatment and Intervention

• Treatment approaches, such as video implemented script training for aphasia (VISTA), have been shown to be effective in improving speech production and fluency in individuals with non-fluent/agrammatic primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA) 3.
• The integrity of spared regions within the speech-language network may be an important predictor of treatment response 3.