What is Speech Therapy?
Speech therapy is treatment that helps children and adults improve their overall communication skills, language skills, swallowing disorders, and feeding disorders. This treatment is performed by a Speech- Language Pathologist who works to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat a variety of communication/feeding concerns that can impact a person’s overall quality of life.
How do I know if my child needs speech therapy? If your child is experiencing/demonstrating any of these characteristics, they would likely benefit from receiving skilled speech therapy.
Language delay
Auditory processing disorder
Atypical speech sound errors that impact their ability to be understood.
Childhood apraxia of speech
Stuttering/ fluency disorder
Feeding disorders
Reading/ phonological awareness difficulties
What does speech therapy do? Speech therapy helps to improve an individual’s ability to communicate for a variety of pragmatic functions with different communication partners. Speech therapy typically benefits anyone with a communication disorder and aids individuals in expressing themselves and connecting with the world around them. Speech therapy can boost one’s ability to create relationships with peers and support overall confidence. Additionally, speech therapy provides treatment for individuals who may have problems getting food/liquid to their mouth, and for individuals who have trouble managing and moving food from the mouth to the stomach.
Each child’s recommended plan of care may vary, however, working towards improved quality of life and functional communication will always be the primary goal when receiving speech therapy.
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