Clinic For Speech Therapy &
Occupational Therapy
Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP), often informally known as Speech Therapist (ST), is a professional who treats individuals with communication disorders. Therefore an SLP plays a major role in evaluation and treatment of patients with communication disorders.
A Paediatric SLP helps children communicate effectively by assisting with the improvement of their verbal and non-verbal language skills. Not only that, but also helps children with feeding and swallowing difficulties. An SLP assesses speech, language, cognitive -communication, and oral/feeding/swallowing skills to identify types of communication problems and the best way to treat them. The patients’ ages may vary from newborns to teenagers.
An evaluation by a certified SLP can help find out if your child is having any problem and Speech-Language Therapy (SLT) is the treatment for most kids with speech and/or language disorders.
Speech Disorders A speech disorder refers to a problem with the actual production of sounds. Speech disorders include:
Articulation disorders: Difficulties producing sounds in syllables or how we say sounds and put sounds together into words to the point that listeners cannot understand what is being said.
Resonance or voice disorders: Problems with the volume, pitch, or quality of the voice that distract listeners from what is being said.
Fluency disorders: Problems such as stuttering, in which the flow of speech is interrupted. Someone who stutters may repeat sounds (eg: t-t-t-table), prolonging sounds and syllables (eg: sssssnake), use "um" or "uh" or pause a lot when talking. Many young children will go through a time when they stutter, but most of them outgrow it.
Language Disorders A language disorder refers to a problem related with how well we understand what we hear or read and how we use words to tell others what we are thinking. Language disorders can be either receptive or expressive:
Receptive disorders: Difficulties in understanding or processing language.
Expressive disorders: Difficulties in combining words together, limited vocabulary, or inability to use language in a socially appropriate way.
Cognitive-communication disorders: Difficulty with communication skills that involve attention, memory, problem solving, perception, organization and other thinking skills.
Feeding Disorders
Dysphagia/oral feeding disorders are disorders in the way someone eats or drinks, including problems with chewing, swallowing, sucking and refusing food.
Kids might need Speech Language Therapy for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to:
Articulation problems
Fluency disorders
Voice related problems
Birth defects such as cleft lip or cleft palate (CLP)
Weak oral muscles
Motor planning problems
Respiratory problems (Breathing disorders)
Feeding and swallowing disorders
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Learning Disability (LD)
Specific Language Impairment (SLI)
Dyslexia
Auditory Processing Disorders (APDs)
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
Hearing Impairment
Cognitive or other Developmental Delays and so on.
Therapy should begin as soon as possible. Children enrolled in therapy early (before they are 5 years old) tend to have better outcomes than those who begin therapy later. This does not mean that older kids cannot make progress in therapy; they may progress at a slower rate because they often have learned patterns that need to be changed.
Once an initial assessment is performed, the SLP will determine the best course of action. Interventions vary depending on what communication or feeding and swallowing goals will be targeted. An SLP strives to make every therapy session feel like play, especially for the youngest children. To improve articulation, SLP might have a child play with a baby doll and pretends to feed it, naming and talking about pre-selected or strategically selected food to improve articulation of certain sounds.
Playing with the doll and practicing targeted sounds is fun and therapeutic for children at the same time. To target a child’s receptive language and/or executive functioning goals, a therapist may create a fun, motivating obstacle course where the child needs to follow specific directions and recall a sequence of events.
An SLP gives parents and children the tools they need to improve their language skills, but therapist says "It’s the time spent using those tools at home and in the children’s natural environment that really creates lasting change". Practicing what is learned at the therapy appointments is just as important as the appointments themselves. Parents should ask the therapist what goals and strategies can be carried over into the home environment to improve speech and language skills.