Speech Therapy

What Is a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP)? 

A speech-language pathologist is a licensed health care professional who screens, assesses, diagnoses, and provides treatment to persons with — or at risk for — speech, voice, language, communication, swallowing, and related disabilities. They develop plans and carry out therapy programs to correct or modify the disorder or develop other means of communicating and/or eating. A speech-language pathologist also counsels individuals and families in managing the problem.

Why Use the Services of a SLP?

Anyone at any age can have a speech, swallowing and/or language problem. The earlier the problem is diagnosed and therapy begun, the better the chances of successful treatment. Speech and language development is not a separate function but a continuous process involving every aspect of the individual — intellectual, motor, emotional, and social. Therefore, problems of speech, language, or swallowing may need not only speech and language evaluations, but also Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, medical or psychological evaluations.

When do you need a SLP?

Evaluation or consultation with a speech-language pathologist may be warranted if you have concerns regarding your child’s speech or language development or use in any of the following areas:

• Language: Is your child gesturing, but not talking?  Does your child seem to have a limited vocabulary for his/her age?  Does your child have a hard time understanding directions?
• Articulation: Do you have a hard time understanding your child’s speech?  Do teachers point out to you that your child is more difficult to understand than other children his/her age?
• Feeding/swallowing: Is your child having difficulty eating and swallowing safely?
• Fluency:  Does your child frequently struggle to speak and/or repeat sounds, syllables, or words when speaking?
• Voice: Is your child’s voice chronically hoarse?

Services offered at NAPA Center

• NAPA Center offers evaluations and speech and language therapy for in the following areas:
• Early Intervention
• Oral Motor Dysfunction
• Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
• Feeding/Swallowing
• Articulation: difficulty producing speech sounds
• Apraxia of speech
• Expressive Language: difficulty expressing wants and needs, using age-appropriate vocabulary, word structures (e.g. verb tense, possessives) and/or sentence structures.
• Receptive Language/Language processing: difficulty following directions, understanding what has been said, using short-term memory skills
• Critical thinking: difficulty understanding or discussing cause/effect, problem solving, inferential, and/or figurative language
• Pragmatics: difficulty using appropriate social language
• Fluency Disorders/Stuttering

Specialized SLP services offered through NAPA include:

• Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) evaluations, training on use of AAC devices, and development or refinement of holistic communication systems for children with complex communication needs
• Feeding and swallowing treatment with use of VitalStim

Resources:

Normal Speech and Language Development: http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/