The former clinical director of Julia Hobbs Speech Pathology, Kariel Thompson currently contributes to the Los Angeles, California, community with services for children with developmental disabilities and communication disorders and their families. Kariel Thompson holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, Irvine, and a master’s degree in communication disorders from California State University.

Communication disorders involve continuous issues related to speech and language. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), there are five categories of communication disorders: language disorder, speech sound disorder, childhood-onset fluency disorder (stuttering), social (pragmatic) communication disorder, and unspecified communication disorder.

Frequently, the causes of these disorders are unknown, but they can occur due to certain medical and neurological complications. Some causes of communication disorders are autism, intellectual disability, and neurological disorders. Other possible causes are hearing loss, brain injury, vocal cord injury, physical impairments, drug abuse, developmental disorders, and emotional or psychiatric disorders.