Speech & Language Therapy FAQs

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Speech & Language Therapy FAQs

What is speech-language therapy?

Speech-language therapy caters to children or adults with speech and/or language difficulties as well as feeding and swallowing difficulties. At Especially Words, speech-language therapy is provided to children and teenagers with speech-language difficulties.

Speech-language therapy usually involves intensive teaching of speech-language goals within a fun setting designed to engage the child and maximize learning.  Therapy sessions are tailored to the specific needs of each child. For example, activities used with an older child will be different from activities used with a younger child.

Who attends speech-language therapy?

Children who attend speech-language therapy sessions have usually been identified or diagnosed by a paediatrician, teacher, psychologist or speech-language therapist to have speech or language issues. Parents who are concerned about their child’s speech and language development may also bring their child for a speech-language assessment.

How will I know if my child needs speech-language therapy?

Your child may need speech-language therapy if he/she:

• Does not speak clearly or is difficult to understand

• Stutters while speaking

• Uses fewer than 100 words by 18 months and is not joining words together (e.g. “Mummy go”)

• Uses fewer than 300 words by 30 months and does not use action words (e.g. “run”, “eat”)

• Does not ask questions or use simple sentences (e.g.” My cup is broken”) by 3 years

• Experiences difficulty understanding and/or following instructions

• Experiences difficulty understanding  what is being said to him/her

• Experiences difficulty responding appropriately to simple questions

• Experiences difficulty expressing himself/herself, talking about his/her experiences, making simple explanations and producing simple narratives

• Experiences difficulty with higher level language skills such as producing various discourse genres (e.g. narratives, recounts, reports) and comprehending texts/situations which require higher level reasoning skills (e.g. inference, prediction, sequencing )

• Experiences difficulty socialising or interacting with his/her peers

References:                                                                                                                                                        

Paul, R. (2007). Language Disorders from Infancy through Adolescence. Mosby Elsevier.                                           

The Hanen Centre (No Date) [Online] ‘When Should You Seek Help?’ Accessed 26 November 2011. Available: http://www.hanen.org/Helpful-Info/What-Parents-Need-to-Know/Warning-Signs.aspx

Does my child have a speech-language disorder?

An assessment will have to be conducted to determine whether or not your child has a speech-language disorder.

Children who display the speech and language features described above or who are not meeting their speech-language developmental milestones may be diagnosed with a speech disorder, Childhood Apraxia of Speech (or dyspraxia), speech and language delay, language disorder, specific language impairment (SLI) or auditory processing disorder, among others. Children who are on the autism spectrum or who have been diagnosed with developmental delays or other disorders usually also present with speech and/or language disorders.

How long will my child need speech-language therapy?

The length of therapy varies from child to child, depending on the child’s progress and discussion between his/her parents and the speech-language therapist.