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…)