Speech & Language Therapy

“Encouraging a child means that one or more of the following critical life messages are coming through, either by word or by action: I believe in you, I trust you, I know you can handle this, You are listened to, You are cared for, You are very important to me.”

– Barbara Coloroso

Pediatric Speech Language Pathology at The Therapy Tree

Working with children from birth to 21 years of age, speech language pathologists, focus on improving both spoken and nonverbal language, hearing abilities, learning difficulties, and feeding and swallowing problems. Because of the complexity of many disorders that are associated with treatment by speech language pathology, there is often collaboration with our other specialties including physical or occupational therapy, and counseling services. Total mind and body wellness, restoring confidence, and building life skills is always our goal in providing optimal growth and health of the children we treat.

How do I know if my child needs help with speech and language?

Speech and language difficulties are one of the most common of all developmental delays. Children develop at different rates, however, there are certain skills that are expected by certain stages in a child’s development. At wellness check-ups, your child’s pediatrician may notice problematic areas of communication and write a prescription referring your child to speech language pathology.

Conditions Treated by Pediatric Speech Language Pathology

There are many reasons children are referred for speech therapy. Our Pediatric Speech Language Pathology Team helps children with an incredible range of needs. The areas of child development that are treated include developmental delays/disorders, auditory processing, medical conditions that cause oral-motor, feeding, or communication difficulties, language-based learning disabilities, and developmental delays. Below is a list of the more common conditions that pediatric speech language pathologists treat.

Articulation & Phonological Disorders

Children with speech sound disorders have difficulty producing sounds, words or phrases clearly and fluently. This can be due to immature development, neurological impairment or a structural/anatomical difference.

Speech Sound disorders include:

  • Articulation disorders: An articulation disorder is the inability to say certain speech sounds correctly beyond the age when the sound is typically learned. Speech sounds may be dropped, added, distorted or substituted. Keep in mind that some sound changes may be part of an accent or dialect, and may not be true speech errors.
  • Phonological process disorders: A phonological process disorder occurs when a child makes predictable and typical patterns of speech sound errors. The mistakes may be common in young children learning speech skills, but when they continue past a certain age, it may be a disorder.
  • Disorders that involve a combination of both articulation and phonological process disorders.

Signs of an articulation disorder can include:

  • Leaving off sounds from words, such as saying “coo” instead of “school”
  • Adding sounds to words, such as saying “puhlay” instead of “play”
  • Distorting sounds in words, such as saying “thith” instead of “this”
  • Substituting sounds in words, such as saying “wadio” instead of “radio”

Signs of a phonological process disorder can include:

  • Saying only one syllable in a word, such as saying “bay” instead of “baby”
  • Simplifying a word by repeating two syllables, such as saying “baba” instead of “bottle”
  • Leaving out a consonant sound, such as saying “at” or “ba” instead of “bat” or saying “tar” instead of “star”
  • Changing certain consonant sounds, such as “tat” instead of “cat”

https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/speech-sound-disorders-children

Developmental Milestones & Red Flags

Below are both standard developmental language and communication skills milestones and signs you can look for to determine if your child might need speech and language therapy. Children develop at different rates, which is why these are general milestones and the overall health and well-being of a child should always be taken into consideration.

Developmental Milestones

  • Coos, makes gurgling noises
  • Turns head towards sounds

Screening Signs

  • Doesn’t respond to loud noises

Our speech therapists provide evaluation and direct therapy services for ages birth to young adult. We provide Free Developmental Screening for children ages birth to five years of age. If you are interested in a screening or evaluation for your child, email us at info@thetherapytree.org, or call The Therapy Tree at (847)265-7300.

What happens after the screening?

Once we complete the developmental screening, our therapists will provide you with a Screening Summary Sheet. If the therapists who performed the screening feel that a full evaluation is needed, they will request in writing, that your pediatrician prescribe a speech language pathology evaluation on the Screening Summary.

What happens if a full evaluation is suggested?

Your child will be evaluated to determine if speech language pathology would be of benefit and what areas of development need improvement. We strive to provide you with the most comfort, knowledge, and confidence in understanding what pediatric speech language pathology will accomplish. After the evaluation, if it is determined that therapy is necessary, we will address in-depth, specific obstacles that are occurring with your child’s speech and language development and work to develop an individualized treatment plan along with teaching tools for parent/caregiver to continue skill-building in the home, to improve or eliminate these problem areas. The use of different techniques, both traditional and complimentary, along with collaboration across multiple specialties available at The Therapy Tree, provide children the best possible outcome for increasing communication, independence, confidence, and overall life skills.

The type of therapeutic methods used and length of services are dependent on varying issues such as what problems are being addressed, who willing participants are and what their desired goals are, and also influenced by the strength and help of their support systems, and level of needs to be met. Sometimes sessions are set on a weekly basis, taking learning step by step and at a steady pace. Other times sessions can be more or less frequent based on the client’s particular needs at the time.

Techniques Used in Pediatric SLP

The Therapy Tree is blessed with highly trained therapists in multiple disciplines. Our Pediatric Speech and Language Therapists are leading the way in extensive training in complimentary or alternative techniques.

The use of different techniques, both traditional and complimentary, along with collaboration across multiple specialties including physical therapy, occupational therapy, or counseling services available at The Therapy Tree, provides children the best possible outcome for increasing mobility, independence, confidence, and overall life skills.

Emotion SPOT® series

Developed by Diane Alber, the SPOT® series is used by therapists as a tool in individual and group therapy to build understanding of emotions, build social-emotional intelligence and promote learning and discussion about managing and navigating emotions in daily living situations.

Our Pediatric Speech & Language Therapy Team

Our therapists provide therapy with compassion and enthusiasm, while focusing on improving the lives of families as a whole. Just as much as we teach and help our pediatric patients, they become some of our greatest challenges, joy, and teachers.

Meet Our Pediatric Speech & Language Therapy Team

For more information on the therapeutic services we offer adults, families, and others, including massage therapy, yoga, and other wellness classes, please visit our Adult Services and our Wellness Center pages.