Trust your parent instincts and act fast! Speech therapy should be considered if you find that your child has DIFFICULTIES:
- Pronouncing words clearly
- Following directions
- Understanding what others say
- Expressing thoughts and ideas
- Displaying a natural flow of speech (without frequent repetitions or pauses)
- Using a healthy vocal behavior
- Interacting with other people across environments
- Managing a variety of food textures
- Gaining weight, chewing, and sucking
- Safely swallowing liquids or solids
What is speech therapy?
Speech therapy is a type of intervention designed to improve communication, speech, language, cognitive, feeding, and swallowing skills.
The speech therapist, also called speech-language pathologist, is the professional in charge of conducting assessments and providing treatment.
A preceding comprehensive evaluation is required to determine if there is an impairment. In the case that speech therapy is recommended, a personalized intervention should be planned based on the person’s needs.
Speech therapy can be provided to individuals of all ages, from newborns to older adults.
What do speech therapists do?
Speech language pathologists focus their intervention on improving the following skills: communication for verbal and nonverbal individuals, receptive language, expressive language, pragmatic language (social language skills needed to interact with others), reading and writing, pronunciation, phonology, cognitive abilities, fluency of speech, voice, feeding, and swallowing.
In the case of bilingual children with speech and language disorders, a bilingual speech-language pathologist with clinical experience is the best option to provide speech therapy services.
Where can I find a speech therapist?
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) provides a Free directory ASHA ProFind where you can find Certified speech-language pathologists in your area.
