Speech – Language therapy

Pediatric speech-language therapy helps children with communication challenges, both in how they speak and how they understand communication.  Speech therapy also treats oral-motor concerns, such as chewing and swallowing. Once an initial evaluation is performed, our speech-language pathologist will determine the best course of action. Interventions vary depending on what communication or feeding and swallowing goals will be targeted. Family involvement is a key to success.  Our speech-language pathologists provide the child and their family with the tools they need to improve their speech and language skills.  The time spent using the tools at home in the child’s natural environment is what really creates lasting change.

A child in your life may benefit from speech-language therapy services if one or more of the following are true:

• Infant/toddler is not responding to sounds.
• Infant/toddler is not babbling/playing with sounds or trying to imitate you.
• Child does not meet the majority of developmental milestones within an appropriate timeframe.
• Parent or other people have difficulty understanding child.
• People think child is younger than he/she actually is because of the way he/she speaks.
• Child is being teased or shows frustration because of the way he/she talks.
• Child distorts sounds or substitutes sounds in words.
• Child uses fewer words than other children of his/her age.
• Child stutters or produces speech with many stops and starts.
• Child has difficulty following directions.
• Child’s interactions or play seem unusual or inappropriate when compared with peers.
• Child struggles with reading, writing, and/or spelling.
• Child has difficulty maintaining volume of speech. He or she speaks too loud or too quiet.
• Child’s voice is harsh or hoarse.
• Child’s pitch is too high or too low.
• Child does not tolerate a variety of food textures, flavors, etc.
• Child has difficulty chewing and/or swallowing.
• Child loses liquids when drinking from a cup.