Speech & Language Therapy
Speech therapists work on communication skills and language skills necessary for a child to participate in play, interact successfully with family members and friends, express themselves, and understand others.
Speech
Disorders
Articulation or difficulties producing sounds in syllables or saying words incorrectly to the point that other people can't understand what's being said. Decreased intelligibility may or may not be caused by physical impairments such as cleft lip and palate, hearing loss, craniofacial abnormalities, or velopharyngeal insufficiency.
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Fluency disorders include problems such as stuttering, the condition in which the flow of speech is interrupted by abnormal stoppages, repetitions, or prolonging sounds and syllables.
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Resonance or voice disorders include problems with the pitch, volume, or quality of the voice that distract listeners from what's being said.
Language
Disorders
Expressive Language: child’s ability to share thoughts and feelings, use appropriate sentence length and structure, utilize vocabulary and word finding skills, ask questions, use non-verbal gestures, and engage in social interactions with adults and peers.
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Receptive Language: child’s ability to understand others, process auditory information, understand basic concepts such as “wh” (what, where, when, why) questions, follow directions and sequences, and read non-verbal cues such as body language and facial expressions.
Motor Speech
Disorders
Childhood Apraxia- problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech. The child knows what he or she wants to say, but his/her brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words.
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Dysarthria is a neurological motor speech impairment characterized by slow, weak, uncoordinated movements of the oral/speech musculature.
Attending
Phonological Awareness
Auditory Memory
Recalling Information Problem
Processing Skills
& Cognition
Problem Solving
Reasoning
Logic
Organizing
Turn-taking
Understanding Social Boundaries