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Speech-Language Therapy

Child In Speech Therapy

Speech-language therapy is the treatment for most children with speech and/or language disorders.
A speech disorder refers to difficulties pronouncing speech sounds, voice, or fluency issues, whereas a language disorder refers to difficulty comprehending or expressing ideas to communicate effectively. Language deficits can affect both verbal as well as written expression skills.

Speech Disorders may affect:

  • Articulation

  • Fluency (Stuttering)

  • Voice

  • Cluttering

  • Swallowing Disorders

  • Oral motor (Difficulty moving, manipulating, and coordination of lips and tongue for speech and chewing)

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Language Disorders may affect:

  • Receptive Language: Understanding, comprehending, processing, listening, short term memory, visual and verbal memory, organizing, and retaining information.

  • Expressive Language: Vocabulary, written expression, and grammar. A language disorder can affect normal child development and progress into the teenage years.


Reading (decoding) and spelling (encoding) are also areas of focus for children who have auditory processing disorders or dyslexic tendencies. 

Occupational Therapy

Stacking Blocks

Occupational Therapy (O.T.) helps children achieve their fullest potential by improving their independence and performance with play skills, academic skills, fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, social skills, and daily life skills.

Occupational Therapists focus on:

 

  • Fine motor skills:handwriting, pencil/crayon grasp, manipulating toys and puzzles, cutting, and dexterity

  • Eye-hand coordination:copying, coloring and tracing, completing puzzles, copying from the board

  • Handwriting:printed and cursive formation, legibility, spacing and sizing; written communication

  • Visual perception:visual tracking, visual memory, and matching letters, shapes, words 

  • Daily life skills:time and money concepts, dressing skills 

  • Upper body strength and coordination: various weight bearing and strengthening exercises

  • Sensory integration:the ability to take in senses from the environment, process and organize this information in order to participate in everyday activities. It also plays a part in our ability to "filter out irrelevant information" to be able to focus and attend to important information.

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