| Services - Speech/Language
Pediatric Speech and Language Therapy is provided for infants through adolescents to assess and treat speech, language, feeding, and communication skills. A Speech-Language Pathologist may also see children with feeding difficulties to address strategies and methods to improve feeding, swallowing, and mealtimes. A child may be delayed in reaching major speech and language milestones, may have difficulty understanding or using language to communicate wants and needs, or may have difficulty with certain sounds. Depending on a child’s level of function and communication skills, he or she might benefit from a few therapy sessions or many sessions over months or years.
Questions About Speech/Language
How does the Speech and Language Therapist help my child?
After the initial evaluation and assessment, the Speech/Language Pathologist develops a plan of care or a treatment plan to address the child’s communication skills. The plan of care is often stated as long and short-term goals, but in fact can change from treatment to treatment as the child progresses.
Some therapy techniques include teaching and skill building with table top activities, floor play and play-based therapy, fine motor and gross motor games and computer activities, natural speech and language opportunities, and reading and writing for older students. Articulation and oral motor function may also be addressed with the use of activities to improve oral motor strength, range of motion and coordination of the oral musculature. All sessions involve a period of time with the family or caregiver to discuss home programs so that activities and goals can be carried out on a daily basis in a more natural environment.
What will happen at my child’s first visit?
During the first appointment the therapist will conduct a comprehensive evaluation to determine if a child needs speech and/or language therapy services. This typically includes an interview with the parent(s) and/or other caregivers, informal observations in natural communication situations and/or play (e.g., interview and/or observation in play and/or conversation), review of records/reports from other professionals, and formal and informal testing. The therapist will discuss the findings with you and make recommendations for therapy, including the number of visits, frequency, duration, prognosis, and home activities you should do with your child to help to improve his or her speech/language skills. If therapy is recommended, your therapist will create an individualized plan of care specific to your child's and your family.
What are some examples of diagnosis that children may have who come to Milestones for Speech and Language Therapy?
At Milestones we see children with a wide variety of speech and language disorders, including articulation impairments, apraxia of speech, receptive and expressive language disorders, and fluency disorder, or pragmatic language disorder. A child does not need to have a medical diagnosis but speech and language disorders are often secondary to diagnoses such as cleft palate, autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, brain injury, auditory processing disorder, or learning disability. Any child, with or without a diagnosis who has difficulty communicating, or understanding, may need intervention.
Toddlers and preschoolers are sometimes delayed in their ability to communicate. Between 12 and 24 months, reasons for concern include a child who isn't using gestures, such as pointing or waving bye-bye by 12 months or who prefers gestures to vocalizations to communicate by 18 months. At 18 months, your child should be able to imitate sounds by 18 months. There are varied reasons why a child is not able to meet these guideline milestones that vary from genetic makeup to environment, to using English as a second language, to hearing loss or weak oral musculature. Parents and regular caregivers should understand about half of your child's speech at 2 years and about three quarters of your child's speech at 3 years. By 4 years old, even people your child does not know should be able to understand him or her. Early intervention for speech delay has clearly shown better results than the “wait and see” approach.
A child with the diagnosis of autism or related autism spectrum disorder can have minor to profound deficits in communication. Though children with autism spectrum disorders are affected in different ways, in most cases their ability to communicate and interact with others is impaired. Children who have autism are typically delayed in language or may not speak altogether; others lack the ability to establish relationships with other children and may even withdraw from social or physical contact with people.
I think my child might benefit from coming to Speech and Language Therapy. How can we get started?
Frequently a parent and pediatrician discuss a child’s needs and the physician refers the child for therapy. Sometimes the parent has identified the need and wants as much information as possible about the child’s abilities, so self initiates a therapy evaluation. A Speech Therapist can initially examine and evaluate you child without a physician’s referral, but if intervention is recommended, we require a prescription from your child’s primary care physician. Some insurance also require a referral.
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