SPEECH & LANGUAGE THERAPY

ARTICULATION THERAPY

The goal of articulation therapy is to help your child produce challenging sounds and achieve age-appropriate speech. Some sounds develop earlier, like b, p, m, or w. Other sounds take longer to learn, like s, z, v, or th. Your child may substitute one sound for another, leave sounds out, add sounds, or change a sound, making it hard for others to understand him/her. Most children can say almost all speech sounds correctly by 4 years old. A speech sound disorder refers to difficulties with motor production and/or the phonological representation of sounds and speech segments. Articulation therapy is personalized to meet your child’s individual needs and help them produce speech sounds accurately.

Dana is PROMPT Certified. PROMPT is an acronym for Prompt for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets. The technique uses touch cues to a patient’s articulators (jaw, tongue, lips) to manually guide them through a targeted word, phrase or sentence. The technique develops motor control and the development of proper oral muscular movements, while eliminating unnecessary muscle movements, such as jaw sliding and inadequate lip rounding.

Treatment may include the following:

Learning the correct way to make sounds
Learning to tell when sounds are right or wrong
Practicing sounds in different words
Practicing sounds in longer sentences

LANGUAGE THERAPY

A child may have difficulty understanding what others say, may struggle to put thoughts into words, or both.

You may notice that your child has a limited vocabulary, sentences are short, ungrammatical and incomplete. They may speak in short two-word sentences and have trouble answering questions.

A language disorder is not the same as a hearing issue or a speech disorder. Children with language disorders typically have no trouble hearing or pronouncing words. Their challenge is mastering and applying the rules of language, like grammar. They aren’t simply “late talkers.” Without treatment, their communication problems will continue and may lead to emotional issues and academic struggles.

TYPES OF LANGUAGE DISORDERS

Receptive language disorders involve difficulty understanding what others are saying
Expressive language disorders involve difficulty expressing thoughts and ideas
Mixed receptive-expressive language disorders involve difficulty understanding and using spoken language

EARLY SIGNS OF A LANGUAGE DISORDER

Smaller vocabulary than other students of the same age
Uses limited sentence structure or struggles to put words together to form a sentence
Trouble describing a topic or series of events
Unable to follow instructions or ask and answer questions
May appear detached from others at school or home
Doesn’t show appropriate emotions, such as laughing at jokes

Speech & Language Therapy: Services