When most people think of speech therapy they think of a child stuttering or having problems articulating. However, speech therapy can help children with all kinds of problems with communication delays or disorders, including speech delays and disorders, expressive (verbal) and receptive (comprehension) language delays and disorders, and voice and fluency disorders. A speech therapist (often referred to as a speech-language pathologist) is trained to evaluate what kind of language problem your child has and then determine the best course of treatment.
At A Different Kind of Perfect, we also address social/pragmatic language skills, play skills, oral motor skills, feeding, and swallowing problems. Our Texas-licensed and ASHA certified speech-language pathologists preform thorough evaluations to identify your child’s strengths and weaknesses and come up with a personalized treatment plan to help get your child communicating as functional and natural as possible. Our Speech Therapy services include evaluation, intervention, and consultation in the following areas:
GROSS MOTOR SKILLS
Expressive language is the use of language or language production skills, including syntax (word order and grammatical forms), semantics (vocabulary), and pragmatics (functional use of language). Receptive language is the comprehension of all language modalities, including language form (syntax), content/vocabulary (semantics), and function (pragmatics).
FEEDING & VITAL STIM
Feeding therapy is tailored according to each child’s specific needs. An oral motor and feeding evaluation is completed to provide an individualized feeding and treatment plan. VitalStim® Therapy is a neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) technology. It is the only NMES cleared by the FDA to restore swallowing function to patients with oropharyngeal dysphagia. It is a non-invasive way to re-educate the throat muscles needed for swallowing.
MUSCLE TONE & POSTURAL CONTROL
Adequate strength, coordination and control of the oral musculature (the muscles of the tongue, jaw, lips, cheeks, soft palate, and face) are essential for normal feeding, swallowing and clear speech. Oral motor therapy includes the use of specific strategies in order to prepare the oral musculature for adequate overall function.
SOCIAL & PRAGMATIC SKILLS
Apraxia is a motor speech disorder characterized by the inability to plan and sequence movements of the articulators (lips, tongue, jaw, soft palate) for the production of volitional sounds, syllables, words and intelligible speech. This inability is not accompanied by muscular weakness or paralysis.
SELF HELP SKILLS/DAILY LIVING
Articulation skills are speech production skills, meaning the way sounds are formed and put together to make syllables, words, and intelligible speech. Phonology is how speech sounds are organized and used in language. A child may have a phonological disorder if he/she has patterns of speech sound errors that are not typical of how other same-aged peers are developing speech.