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A speech and language assessment includes a variety of standardized and non-standardized measures. These tools are used to provide you with the most accurate descriptions of your child’s speech and language strengths, as well as any challenges in these areas. We use a variety of the most updated assessment tools as part of an overall evaluation.
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A full written report following the assessment is provided, as well as a consultation session to review the report results. If warranted, a treatment plan and goals will be developed with family input as well.
Speech and language therapy sessions are provided in 45-minute increments, which includes time spent reviewing the session’s goals and progress with parents or family members at the conclusion of each session.
We provide individualized services for each client that revolve around their unique strengths and challenges in the areas of communication. Therapy services can include both direct and indirect consultations. Direct therapy consists of individualized instruction in a one to one setting. Indirect therapy includes family education sessions as well as consultations with educators or other professionals that provide service to the client.
What is speech and language?
What Is Speech?
Speech is how we say sounds and words. Speech includes:
Articulation
How we make speech sounds using the mouth, lips, and tongue. For example, we need to be able to say the “r” sound to say "rabbit" instead of "wabbit.”
Voice
How we use our vocal folds and breath to make sounds. Our voice can be loud or soft or high- or low-pitched. We can hurt our voice by talking too much, yelling, or coughing a lot.
Fluency
This is the rhythm of our speech. We sometimes repeat sounds or pause while talking. People who do this a lot may stutter.
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What Is Language?
Language refers to the words we use and how we use them to share ideas and get what we want. Language includes:
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What words mean. Some words have more than one meaning. For example, “star” can be a bright object in the sky or someone famous.
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How to make new words. For example, we can say “friend,” “friendly,” or “unfriendly” and mean something different.
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How to put words together. For example, in English we say, “Peg walked to the new store” instead of “Peg walk store new.”
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What we should say at different times. For example, we might be polite and say, “Would you mind moving your foot?” But, if the person does not move, we may say, “Get off my foot!”
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Language and Speech Disorders
We can have trouble with speech, language, or both. Having trouble understanding what others say is a receptive language disorder. Having problems sharing our thoughts, ideas, and feelings is an expressive language disorder. It is possible to have both a receptive and an expressive language problem.
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These definitions were adopted from www.asha.org.
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