Speech Therapy

Early Intervention Speech Language Pathologist

Primary Mission:
To facilitate and optimize a child’s ability to communicate and/or improve feeding skills in natural environments, and thus improve their quality of life.

Major Roles:
Consult, treat, counsel and provide follow-up services for disorders of:

Speech (articulation, fluency, resonance, and voice)
Language (comprehension and expression of wants/needs, vocabulary development and social aspects of communication)
Swallowing or other infant feeding needs
Cognitive aspects of communication (attention, memory, problem-solving, executive functions)
Sensory awareness related to communication or swallowing

Collaborate, consult and treat when:

expected progress has not occurred in the area of communication
cognitive development has progressed but language skills are developing at a slower pace
child has no functional way to communicate basic wants/needs
characteristics of Autism are exhibited, (i.e., absent joint attention, no pointing, limited communicative intent, high-pitched screeching, limited jargon patterns and/or repetitive jargon patterns)
Signs of apraxia with oral motor planning difficulties for speech are exhibited (i.e. difficulty imitating tongue/lip movements or sounds on command, limited consonant sound production)
Lack of speech clarity is evident
Words are limited to non descriptive/labels
Need for alternative forms of communication (i.e pictures/gestures)
Communicative intent (desire to communicate) or pragmatics (interaction) concerns
Family or another team member expresses speech/language/feeding concerns
Feeding issues have been identified (i.e. transitioning from bottle/breast to cup or from puree to table foods, oral feeding paired with tube feeding…)
Signs/symptoms/diagnosis of dysphagia
Need for assistive technology or adaptive equipment for feeding
Oral motor concerns related to structure and function (craniofacial anomalies, low tone, trach tube, tube feedings…)

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