Our Services

Language

Language disorders can impact children in a variety of different ways. A child with a Language Disorder may experience difficulty finding the correct words to use to share ideas and make their wants/needs known. They may experience difficulty understanding, talking, reading, or writing, which can may cause increased frustration or challenging behaviors when attempting to communicate. Your child may have difficulty:

• Word finding difficulties/slower rate of vocabulary development when compared to same age peers

• Participating in conversational speech

• Difficulty following directions or understanding what is asked of them

• Answering or understanding WH questions

• Speaking in grammatically correct sentences that make sense

• Trouble expressing their basic wants/needs

• Late acquisition of first words and/or word combinations

Articulation

Articulation refers to sound errors, resulting in difficulty being understood. While some sound errors are appropriate for certain age ranges, sound substitutions, distortions, or omissions can be characteristic of an articulation impairment. It is abnormal past a certain age for sounds to be left off or substituted with other sounds. A child may have an articulation impairment if:

• They are often not understood by others

• Difficulty with spelling or reading (they often write how they speak)

• They experience frustration when they are not understood

Feeding/Swallowing

As adults we don’t think about how we eat and it comes naturally, but as children we learn this process. Babies start by sucking and as they grow they learn how to eat solid foods and drink from a cup. It is typical for children to have some difficulty at first. They may have liquids spill from their mouth, gag/choke, or push food back out. However, a child with a feeding disorder continues to have trouble. Consequently, some children only eat one food, are picky eaters, and/or take a long time to consume their food. These children could also have a feeding/swallowing disorder.

Your child may benefit from feeding therapy if they have one or more of the following symptoms:

• Total food refusal

• Arches/stiffens back when feeding

• Cries or fusses when feeding

• Has problems chewing

• Oral aversion

• Volume, food, and liquid intolerance

• Challenges transitioning to age appropriate textures, consistencies, or utensils

• Coughing/gagging during meals or recurrent vomiting

• Restricted eating patterns; eats only certain textures or colors

• Is not gaining weight or growing appropriately

Fluency or stuttering refers to speech production as smooth with correct rate, continuity, and effort. I often describe it “smooth speech” with my patients. A child who stutters often presents with ‘disfluencies’ in which the flow of speaking is interrupted by repetitions and/or accompanied by secondary behaviors including. Stuttering can negatively impact social interactions and interfere with school or work. A child may have a fluency impairment if they:

• Frequently repeat syllables, sounds, words, phrases, or sentences

• Prolong certain sounds

• Have secondary behaviors accompanied with stuttering including: eye twitching, jaw jerking, or other involuntary movements

Social communication refers to the ability to engage in conversation, maintain topics, and pick up on non-verbal body language/cues. Inability to engage in conversations may cause difficulties making friends, maintaining friendships, and connecting with others.

A child may have a social communication deficit if they have trouble:

• Maintaining eye contact

• Understanding non-verbal body language

• Understanding more abstract language including: figurative language/idioms

• Maintaining topic and flow of conversational speech

This includes a review of your child’s reports, a brief parent interview, informal observation of your child, and discussion of any concerns/questions a parent may have as well as coordination with other disciplines (including OT, PT, ABA Therapists) and schools/facilities your child attends.