Speech Pathology
We provide a wide range of assessment and treatment programs designed to help children with the following difficulties.
Receptive Language
A child's ability to understand what is heard and/or read.
The symptoms for a receptive language delay are varied and depend on the child’s age, however, some symptoms may include:
difficulties following instructions
not answering questions correctly or appropriately
having ‘behavioural difficulties’; and
not being able to follow a story.
Expressive Language
A child’s ability to join words to form sentences using the correct vocabulary and grammar.
Some symptoms of expressive language delays can include your child: not joining words to form sentences; using short sentences for their age; using incorrect grammar; being unable to hold a conversation; having difficulties retelling or writing a story.
Speech sound difficulties
This includes articulation errors (making the sound), phonological process errors (patterns of sounds) and apraxia (motor planning).
Symptoms of a speech delay can include:
your child not sounding clear; sounding ‘slushy’
replacing some sounds for other, e.g. ‘k’ for ‘t’ in words (e.g. cat produced as tat); and
producing ‘s’ as a ‘th’ (e.g. ‘so’ à ‘tho’); and not being understood by unfamiliar listeners.
Social skills, social communication, and play
Social skills are the verbal and non-verbal skills we use to communicate.
These skills do not always come easily or naturally to children, especially those with language delays and disorders such as Autism. A child with poor social skills may demonstrate: limited eye contact; poor topic maintenance; difficulty understanding emotions or communicating their feelings; difficulty initiating and maintaining a conversation; poor turn taking skills; difficulty using greetings; and difficulties understanding social norms, jokes, idioms.
Phonological Awareness
Pre-literacy skills for early reading and writing.
Phonological awareness refers to a child’s ability to understand that words are made up of sounds and a child’s ability to manipulate these sounds within words.
This includes breaking words into sounds and syllables, identifying and producing rhymes, identifying initial and final sounds and blending sounds together. These are the foundational skills necessary in the development of reading and writing.
Some signs of poor phonological awareness include:
mispronouncing letters or words; difficulty distinguishing between similar sounds (e.g. confusion between the ‘e’ and ‘i’ sounds)
skipping over words
inability to decode sounds in words; and
guessing a word based on its first sound; writing unrelated or made up words instead of the words they are thinking of.
Literacy - learning to read, write and spell
Difficulties with reading, writing and spelling make everyday tasks at school extremely challenging for children.
In the early years, children are learning to read (write and spell), but as they progress through school, they are reading to learn, e.g. reading textbooks, doing research. Children who struggle with literacy risk falling behind in a wide range of areas at school, particularly once they reach the primary years.
Some indicators are:
performing poorly at school
appearing uninterested in class
requiring longer amounts of time to complete their work
difficulties understanding written information
difficulties reading their own writing; writing letters incorrectly; and
having trouble sounding out words; having difficulty reading texts that are appropriate for their age.
Communication skills for children with disabilities
Many children have communication difficulties as a result of a genetic syndrome (e.g. Down Syndrome, Fragile X, Angelman Syndrome, Klinefelter Syndrome) or other conditions such as Cerebral Palsy.
Regardless of the level of communication difficulty there are many ways to help children communicate more effectively, and even those with profound difficulties have the potential to improve their communication skills enabling them to request, make choices, respond and initiate. Some strategies include the use of visuals and objects of reference, Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS); Assistive & Augmentative Communication (AAC devices), and by enhancing the skills of communication partners in order to create an environment that positively enhances the child’s skills and frequently reduces challenging behaviours.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
A developmental disability that affects the way a child relates to their environment and their interaction with other people.
There is a wide range of difficulties children with ASD may experience, however some of the primary difficulties are with social communication and interaction as well as repetitive behaviours and/or interests, sensory interests
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