Language can be considered expressive (ie. spoken, written, gestural, non-verbal), receptive (ie. comprehension of what we have heard or read), and pragmatic (ie. the social aspects of communication).

Speech production is considered to motor planning and execution (ie. the way our muscles work to make sounds and sound patterns), articulation (individual speech sounds), and phonology (speech sound patterns).

Cognition refers to the processes of attention, memory, problem solving, and executive functioning (the skills that help us use abstract planning and thinking).

Fluency can be described by stuttering and cluttering (ie. speech can be unclear, disorganized and rapid).

Elements of voice include quality (ie. hoarseness, breathy, strained), pitch and loudness.

This area includes hearing loss, deafness and auditory processing (the ability to interpret the sounds that have been heard).

This area relates to the swallowing mechanism (ie. muscles, sensory system, sequencing, etc.), safety and ease of swallowing, as well as atypical eating (ie. food selectivity, refusal, negative physiological responses).

Resonance implies the intensity or quality of the sounds we make when speaking or singing, depending on our head and neck anatomy.