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Therapy
 

MGillum SCS currently offers speech and language therapy services. 
 

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) develop person-centered treatment plans, provide treatment, document progress, and assess improvement in collaboration with their client and/or their client’s treatment team. SLPs work with families to design and implement effective school, home, work, and community programs to aid in the development of stronger communication skills. SLPs also counsel patients and their families regarding communication-related issues, facilitating participation in family and community contexts.

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HIPPAA compliant teletherapy is available.

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We provide services including but not limited to:

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Aphasia Aphasia is an acquired neurogenic language disorder resulting from an injury to the brain. There are various types of aphasias, but all individuals with aphasia experience word-finding difficulties. Each individual is unique depending on the type of aphasia and level of severity. Regardless, research supports the benefit of receiving speech and language therapy in enhancing one’s communicative abilities. Aphasia causes varying degrees of impairment in spoken language and comprehension, as well as written expression and reading comprehension.

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Articulation Disorders When an individual has an articulation disorder, it means that he or she is producing one or more speech sounds incorrectly. Articulation is impacted due to structural abnormalities, motor-based difficulties or neurological impairments.

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Augmentative & Alternative Communication AAC refers to communication that enhances and/or provides a complementary method for verbal speech. Any individual who is not currently communicating verbally or has limited verbal communication can benefit from AAC. AAC can be no-tech (such as sign language and PECS), low-tech (such as a Big Mack button) or high-tech (such as a speech generated device or the iPad with a designated application).

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Apraxia  Apraxia of speech is a motor speech disorder. Individuals with apraxia have difficulty planning and sequencing the motor movements needed to produce the sounds in syllables and words. Many people with apraxia know what they want to say, but have a hard time executing the motor plans necessary to send the right messages from the brain to the mouth. Apraxia can be acquired due to neurological impairments resulting from a stroke or traumatic brain injury. Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) impacts children from birth. Children with CAS are often late talkers, have a limited verbal repertoire, or have speech that is very difficult to understand. 

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Autism Autism is a form of neurodivergence, which means that people with autism have a unique way of thinking and experiencing the world. Each person with autism is unique and therefore, autism is considered a spectrum. Individuals with autism may have characteristics including social differences, intense passions and interests, repetitions, sensory sensitivities, perception differences and executive functioning differences. 

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Fluency Disorders Stuttering, the most common type of fluency disorder, is marked by persistent interruptions in the flow of speaking. Individuals who stutter repeat sounds, syllables, words, and phrases; prolong specific sounds; or block sounds. Cluttering involves a breakdown in clarity, usually resulting from rapid or irregular speech patterns. It is often characterized by omitting parts of words (usually the ends) and pausing in places in sentences not expected grammatically. 

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Language Delay Language delays occur when children do not develop the language abilities expected to have acquired by a certain age. A language delay occurs when a child's language is developing slower than other children the same age, but it is following the typical pattern of development. Delayed speech or language development is the most common developmental issue. Usually a child with a language delay will have trouble building his or her vocabulary, properly structuring sentences, and understanding what is being said to them.

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Phonological Disorders Individuals with phonological disorders present with speech that is often significantly impacted and difficult to understand due to entire patterns of incorrect speech production. These patterns are called “phonological processes.” There are many different types of phonological processes and children can present with one process or many processes simultaneously. The more common phonological processes include: Fronting, Backing, Cluster Reduction, Final Consonant Deletion, Initial Consonant Deletion, Vowelization, Reduplication, Assimilation, Prevocalic Voicing and Postvocalic Voicing. For example, if an individual presents with final consonant deletion, he or she would omit many of the final sounds in words (i.e., saying “ba” instead of “bat”). If he/she presents with fronting, the individual would produce all back sounds (k,g) in the front (i.e., “dough” for “go” or “tee” for “key”).

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Reading Deficits Children with language impairment have a greater risk for developing reading disorders, which usually manifest as difficulty with decoding and/or comprehension. The likelihood that children with language impairment will have reading comprehension problems is great enough to warrant early intervention for literacy.

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Social/Pragmatic Skills Communication issues can lead to long-term implications as they have an adverse impression on how an individual interacts with the world around them. Having a strong foundation in the understanding and use of social skills is essential for children and adults to be successful in communicating with others. Because social skills are very complex and can be difficult to teach people with speech and/or language disorders.

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Traumatic Brain Injury Traumatic Brain Injury, often referred to as TBI, can be caused by any accident that results in injury to the brain. The most common causes are automobile accidents, sport-related injuries, firearms, and falls. TBI can negatively impact the individual in many ways, resulting in physical problems such as losing consciousness, experiencing seizures, headaches, dizziness or vomiting. Sensory issues associated with TBI include increased or decreased sensitivity to light, sound or touch. Behavioral changes include increased feelings of anger, anxiety and depression. Cognitive problems include difficulties with memory, attention and problem solving. Speech, language and communication difficulties are often present with TBI. Speech may be difficult to understand due to dysarthria, which refers to muscle weakness, and/or apraxia, which refers to difficulty with motor planning, necessary to coordinate the muscles to correctly produce speech. Furthermore, individuals with TBI may have difficulty understanding and using language as they once did. Social communication issues can include difficulty understanding nonliteral language, such as jokes, idiomatic expressions or nonverbal cues. Individuals with TBI are often referred to as “inappropriate” due to difficulty with social communication.

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