Creative Speech-Language Pathology services for kids.

Language refers to the words we use and how we use them to share our ideas and have our wants and needs met.

Children with difficulties in this area may appear to have less language than others their age or may have difficulty understanding/following directions.

Language includes:

• Receptive language (ability to understand language)

• Expressive language (ability to verbally use language to communicate ideas).

Children may have difficulties in one or both areas.

Speech refers to how we say sounds and words. Children with difficulties in this area often are described as being difficult to understand and/or have certain sounds they can’t say properly.

Speech difficulties can be either/both:

1. Articulation (pronunciation) and/or

2. Motor speech disorders (planning/coordination of motor control for speech)

Social communication refers to how and why we use language to interact with others (some rules are taught while much is learned through experience).

Children with difficulties in this area may have a hard time learning and using the rules of social communication during interactions.

Augmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC) refers to multiple ways of supporting communication when verbal means are less effective (e.g. those with severe expressive communication disorders).

A combination of speech, vocalizations, gestures, manual signs and aided communication (low-tech and high-tech external supports) are used to achieve communication goals.

Fluency refers to the smoothness, rate, and flow of speech. Everyone is disfluent at times but those children with difficulties will have more frequent and severe interruptions to the flow of their speech.

Stuttering is the most common type of fluency disorder, and can result in repetitions of sounds, syllables, or words, holding a sound (e.g. sssssssorry) and/or blocks (sound not coming out at all).