Speech Therapy Evaluation and Treatment
Also known as: speech-language therapy, SLP.
What is Speech and Language Therapy?
Speech therapy is a specialized intervention aimed at addressing various speech disorders, as well as improving a child's ability to understand and express language. This therapy, particularly beneficial for those experiencing difficulties in speech and language, is conducted by a trained medical professional known as a speech-language pathologist.
What does a Speech Pathologist do?
Speech-language pathologists work to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive-communication, and swallowing disorders.
What happens during the SLP treatment?
Speech-language therapy encompasses the following areas:
- Articulation — focuses on errors (e.g., distortions and substitutions) in production of individual speech sounds.
- Fluency — trouble speaking in a fluid or flowing way. Stuttering (e.g., say the whole word or parts of the word more than once. Or you may pause awkwardly between words.) or cluttering (e.g., speak fast and jam words together, or say "uh" often.)
- Voice — occur when voice quality, pitch, and loudness differ or are inappropriate for an individual’s age, gender, cultural background, or geographic location (Aronson & Bless, 2009; Boone et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2004).
- Receptive/Expressive Language — occur when a person has trouble understanding others spoken or written language (receptive language), or sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings orally or in writing (expressive language).
- Play — allows children to develop skills in problem-solving, turn-taking, and symbolic thinking, all of which are foundational to language development.
- Oral-Motor — exercises/movements with lips, tongue, teeth, and jaw to determine whether an oral motor weakness exists.
A formal assessment is conducted to determine the areas of deficit and goal plans are created.
Is any special preparation needed?
A prescription from a medical provider (i.e., pediatrician, sub-specialist) is required to initiate scheduling the evaluation.
What are the risk factors?
There are no risk factors related to speech therapy.
Reviewed by: Jamie Tarshis
This page was last updated on: April 25, 2024 02:56 PM
April 14, 2021 – Why is my child not communicating? Why are mealtimes such a battle? These are some of the questions that speech-language therapists are asked when first meeting families seeking therapy for a young child. Sometimes, it is not just a lack of “speech” or difficulties eating that are the focus of our evaluation. Sometimes we are the first to tell parents or caregivers that the child has what we call “red flags for autism.”
Related Podcasts
Welcome back to "For Peds Sake," your go-to podcast for pediatric healthcare discussions. Today we have a very special guest with us. Dr. Keysla Lee, Speech Language Pathologist at Nicklaus Children's Hospital will be diving into communication milestones for children aged 13 to 18 months.