In my experience as a speech-language pathologist, February has always been a busy month for speech-language evaluations and newcomers to therapy, particularly for school-age children and older preschoolers. At this point in the school year, first semester is over, report cards are handed out, parent conferences are held, and, for the older children, end-of-grade tests are looming. Recommendations for speech therapy are made to parents of children who have not made adequate academic progress due to possible speech and language concerns.
The speech therapists here at Child and Family Development would be happy to evaluate your child in order to pinpoint the source of the academic or social concerns. Testing and subsequent therapy for receptive language (comprehension) skills, expressive language skills, and articulation (pronunciation) skills may be administered, as well as testing for a variety of language processing skills, including phonological skills (pre-reading and spelling skills), memory, and word retrieval skills. Difficulties in any of these areas can impact academic and social functioning in the classroom. Feel free to contact us!
I recently attended a course that covered a wide variety of information on the evaluation and treatment of children with cleft palate and/or craniofacial anomalies. This topic is of particular interest to me; I loved participating in craniofacial clinics and research in graduate school, and I now serve on a multidisciplinary cleft palate team here in Charlotte.
Clefts of the lip and palate are very common birth defects, but little is heard about them. Children with clefts may need speech therapy for a variety of reasons. They often need feeding therapy in infancy, and speech-language therapy in toddlerhood and early childhood. Cleft palate is associated with over 300 different genetic syndromes, which often cause developmental delays, including language delays. Even after surgical repair of the palate is complete, articulation therapy or voice therapy may be warranted.
Please contact a speech therapist if you have questions or concerns related to speech therapy for children with cleft palates. We will be glad to help!
As many of you know, a pediatric speech therapist treats much more than just lisps! One of the common disorders we treat in children is known as a "language processing" disorder. Language processing disorders are different than receptive-expressive language disorders and central auditory processing disorders (CAPD).
Speech therapy for language processing focuses on organizing the language stored within a child's memory so that he or she can understand and use language more efficiently and effectively. Therapy can include work on word retrieval, sequential memory, working memory, relational and reasoning skills, basic phonological skills for reading and spelling, and more!
A child can have language processing difficulties in conjunction with a receptive-expressive language impairment. A speech therapist often finds processing impairments in children with autism spectrum disorder, children who stutter, and children who are having trouble with reading and/or spelling. However, children who have age-appropriate or even above average language skills may have language processing difficulties.
Any speech therapist at Child & Family Development can answer questions about language processing, and our website is also a great resource. Check us out at
www.childandfamilydevelopment.com.
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