Most children develop speech and language skills within a specific age range. A child who takes longer to learn a skill may have a problem. A speech language pathologist, or SLP(from Solaris Pediatric Therapy,) will work to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive-communication, and feeding/swallowing disorders in your child. Call the office or request an appointment online today.
A speech disorder is an umbrella term referring to any difficulty or combination of difficulties with perception, motor production, or phonological representation of speech sounds and speech segments—including rules governing permissible speech sound sequences in a language. Speech disorders include:
A language disorder refers to a problem understanding or putting words together to communicate ideas. Language disorders can be either receptive or expressive:
Social communication is the use of language in social contexts. It encompasses social interaction, social cognition, pragmatics, and language processing. A social communication disorder is characterized by difficulties with the use of verbal and nonverbal language for social purposes.
Dysphagia/oral feeding disorders are disorders in the way someone eats or drinks. They include problems with chewing and swallowing, coughing, gagging, and refusing foods.
In general, speech therapy involves play and talking, using pictures, books, objects, or ongoing events to stimulate development. The clinician will model correct production and use repetitive exercise to build skills. If chewing and swallowing are a challenge, then you can expect exercise to strengthen the muscles of the mouth, as well as working with different food textures and temperatures to increase oral awareness during eating and swallowing.
While treatment is specifically designed to treat everyone differently, some of the therapies provided at Solaris Pediatric Therapy include:
Our speech pathologist also has knowledge and skills in correcting tongue thrust, treating selective mutism, and assessment/treatment involving speech generating devices