Speech & Language Therapy

SMC provides individual speech and language therapy. Speech and language therapies address a variety of deficits that impact social communication.

  • Speech Therapy

    Speech is the verbal means of communicating and includes articulation, voice, and fluency.

    Speech therapy targets problems in articulation, voice and fluency.

    • Articulation: how speech sounds are made
    • Voice: use of the vocal folds and breathing to produce (speech)
    • Fluency: the rhythm of speech

  • Language Therapy

    Language therapy can address deficits in socially shared rules that include the following areas:

    • What words mean
    • How to put words together
    • What word combinations are best in what situations (social language)
    • Social language (pragmatics)
    • using language for different purposes
    • changing language according to the needs of listener or situation
    • following rules of conversation
    • storytelling

    In addition language therapy can focus on receptive language (comprehension) and/or expressive language (difficulties sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings).

    We often see parents placing great emphasis on speech and less on the development of language. A child must have the words to speak in order to be an effective social communicator (social pragmatics).

Language deficits and disorders impact a child’s social and academic learning capacity.
When a child is struggling in the following areas, language testing may identify the source of the learning barrier: 

  • Difficulty following/understanding directions

  • Difficulty learning vocabulary

  • Problems understanding instruction(s) Difficulty retaining information

  • Reading comprehension problems

  • Difficulty putting ideas into words 

  • Difficulty putting words into organized sentences

  • Trouble getting others to understand what they are trying to communicate

  • Social isolation-unwilling to participate in class 

  • Interferes with ability to demonstrate what is learned

 At SMC all speech and language interventions are preceded by a speech & language assessment testing and a comprehensive plan of care.

 http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/language_speech/