Therapy Provided
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder have a wide range of communicative needs ranging from mild to severe. Therapy is dependent of the severity of the child's communication needs and their ability. Some therapy techniques incorporated are communication boards and AAC (Augmented and Alternative Communication) devices for nonverbal children, socialization and receptive/expressive language therapy for verbal children.
Pragmatic Language Therapy/Social Skills Training
Children with pragmatic deficits typically lack “social skills” and have a difficult time initiating/maintaining eye contact, respect personal space boundaries, engage in turn-taking skills, understand perspectives/emotions/humor, etc. Therapy may include role play, social stories, problem solving skills, etc.
Articulation Disorders
Children with articulation or phonological disorders may omit, substitute or change various speech sounds/patterns making it difficult to understand them. Articulation therapy aids your child in helping them understand and self-edit their mis-productions while helping them monitor their speech in daily life by fixing their errors. Therapy incorporates exercises, board games, work sheets and arts/crafts activities.
Feeding & Swallowing Problems
Various factors contribute to a child having difficulty with feeding or swallowing. Factors such as novel food aversion, hyper/hyposensitivity, anatomical abnormalities or limited understanding of the feeding/swallowing process may hinder a child's ability to eat various food. Therapy may incorporate oral-motor massage, desensitization techniques, consult to caregivers and chewing strategies.
Oral-Motor Difficulties
Children with oral-motor difficulties exhibit problems when trying to manipulate their mouth. They have limited control of cheeks, tongue and lips which may negatively impact their feeding/swallowing and articulation skills as well as produce excessive drooling. Therapy may include oral-motor exercise, oral awareness, and strengthening.
Fluency (Stuttering & Cluttering)
Children who stutter often produce speech with repetitive syllables (“I like th-th-that”), prolongations (“I like thaaaaaat”) or blocks (“I like th______at”). They may also have secondary behaviors, such as blinking, finger tapping, etc. some therapy techniques incorporated are monitoring strategies, fluency shaping strategies, counseling and drills.
Language Delay (Receptive & Expressive)
Children with receptive delays have difficulty following single and multi-step directions, limited recall and compression skills. Children with expressive delays have difficulty producing age-appropriate sentences, describing items and engaging in conversation. Therapy may consist of pretend play, arts/crafts activities and engaging with pictures books/cards.
Reading (Dyslexia) & Writing (Dysgraphia) Difficulties (Literacy)
Children with reading and writing difficulties may have an abundant amount of underlying issues. Therapy includes rhyming, segmenting/blending, improving sentence structure, etc.
Bilingual Speech Therapy
Bilingual children may have a language difference, not a language disorder or delay. Due to learning two languages either sequentially or simultaneously they have difficulty providing the same output as a monolingual child. This type of therapy is offered to only bilingual English and Russian speakers and is dependent on the child's ability.
Evaluation & Assessment
Currently both informal assessments and formal evaluations are being offered. An informal assessment includes a child interview (verbal child), parent interview and screener conducted in the privacy of your home for free. A formal evaluation includes child interview (verbal child), parent interview, formal testing with scores, play sample, language sample, articulation screener and other measures deemed necessary at the time of the evaluation. A written report will be provided for the evaluation conducted.
Parent & Nanny Training Sessions
Parent training sessions are offered in the privacy of your own home to train parents to help their children in all areas of communication. A specific training plan will be established based on the child’s ability and specific family needs.