Speech Therapy for Kids

Who needs pediatric speech therapy?

If your child babbles, has trouble putting sentences together, stutters or experiences difficulty with sensory processing, pediatric speech therapy would be beneficial. Speech and language disorders are often common in children with autism, down syndrome, cleft-palate, sensory dysfunction, verbal apraxia, head injury, and many other syndromes.

How does speech therapy work?

Pediatric speech therapy treats communication challenges, both expressive and receptive, that cause children to have difficulty with verbal communication. Speech therapy also treats oral motor concerns, such as chewing and swallowing, as well as articulation, auditory processing and social skills.

What is a Speech Disorder?

Disorders of speech are characterized by difficulty in producing speech sounds correctly, omitting or distorting sounds, or difficulty with producing a few sounds with no pattern. Our therapist create a General Articulation Treatment Procedure that includes the following steps:

• Assess the client’s articulation skills
• Select the target speech sounds for modification.
• Prepare the materials for therapy (picture cards, worksheets, etc)
• Establish baselines with the client.
• Treat with different therapeutic approaches
• Train parents on strategies

The Five Areas of Language

1. Phonology: Sounds in language and the rules that determine how the sounds are used (a-apple a-ate)
2. Semantics: vocabulary of language
3. Syntax: sentence structure (verb, noun, etc)
4. Morphology: meaning of language
5. Pragmatics: how we use language to communicate socially.

***Sometimes children with language and speech disorders have other disorders with speech and language secondary: autism, down syndrome, cleft-palate, sensory dysfunction, verbal apraxia, head injury, and many other syndromes. These will be discussed with families on a specified need basis.