Areas of Speciality

Apraxia is a motor speech disorder that makes it hard for children to speak. It can take a lot of work to learn to say sounds and words better. If a child has apraxia of speech, the messages do not get through correctly. A child with apraxia knows what they want to say. Apraxia is a problem with the brain getting the mouth muscles to move, not with how well the child thinks. Children have the most difficult producing "volitional" or purposeful speech movements. 

Articulation delays or disorders impact the formation of speech sounds are traditionally referred to as articulation disorders and are associated with structural (e.g., cleft palate) and motor-based difficulties (e.g., apraxia). There may also be no underlying cause for an articulation disorder. An example or an articulation delay or disorder. Every child develops sounds at their own rate, however, there are age ranges and "norms" for the development of sounds. 

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) refers to how the central nervous system uses auditory information. Children with APD may exhibit difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments, following directions, and telling the difference between similar-sounding speech sounds. Treatment of APD generally focuses on: changing the learning or communication environment, recruiting higher-order skills to help compensate for the disorder, and remediation of the auditory deficit itself.

Aided AAC systems include pointing to letters, words, or pictures on a board, and touching letters or pictures on a computer system/iPad that speaks for you. 

This allows pre and non verbal persons to express their basic and complex wants/needs and thoughts.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication. There are many subtypes of Autism and each person has a different set of strengths and challenges. 

Feeding and swallowing therapy focuses on the ability to bring food to the mouth, chew, and swallow safely and efficiently. We use a "food chaining" approach and work closely with the Occupational Therapists.

Disorders of fluency or stuttering is a speech disorder that impacts speech fluidity. They are characterized by sound or word repetitions, pauses, or drawn out syllables, words, and phrases.

Learning disabilities are neurologically-based processing problems, such as ADHD, dyslexia, Dysgraphia, etc. 

A phonological disorder is a speech sound disorder that affects the phonological (phonemic) level. The individual has difficulty organizing their speech sounds into a system of sound patterns (phonemic patterns). 

Receptive language skills describe the comprehension of language. Comprehension involves attention, listening, and processing the message to gain information.

The use of language is also called “pragmatics” or “social language.” It is the way we talk, our body language, our assertiveness, and social interaction.