Speech & Language Therapy
What is it?
Speech and language therapy is the assessment and treatment of communication and swallowing difficulties in children and adolescents, or across the lifespan. It is conducted by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) or therapists (SLTs), who are often referred to as speech therapists. SLTs work directly with clients and their caregivers to provide individualized support following a treatment plan.
The American Center for Psychiatry and Psychology (ACPP) provides speech and language services to enhance and maximize the communication skills of children and adolescents. This includes how we speak, what we understand, what we say, and how we interact with others. It also includes other skills such as literacy, reading comprehension, and auditory processing.
By utilizing the latest methods and research, we design evaluations and therapy sessions to meet the individual needs of each child and family.
Our Speech and Language Department offers services at the center, at schools and nurseries, and through telepractice to support the transition and generalization of learned skills.
Services we provide
We provide screenings, comprehensive speech and language evaluations, and speech and language intervention/therapy.
Screenings: A brief review to assess a child or adolescent’s speech, receptive and expressive language, voice, and fluency skills to determine the need for further evaluation and intervention. Screenings can be done on site at the client’s school, preschool, or daycare.
Comprehensive Speech and Language Evaluations: An in-depth assessment of a child or adolescent’s speech, receptive and expressive language skills, voice, and fluency.
Classroom Consultations: Recommendations on speech and language needs are provided to teachers and administrators based upon observations within the classroom environment.
Speech and Language Intervention/Therapy: One-on-one or group sessions with a focus on play-based therapy, family involvement, education for children, literacy skills, and auditory processing for school-aged children and adolescents.
Who needs it?
Children and adolescents struggling with:
- Production of speech sounds: Unintelligibility and difficulties with articulation of specific sounds. Also addresses motor planning and sequencing sounds in words.
- Fluency of speech: Struggles in the flow, speed, and rhythm of speech, including stuttering and cluttering.
- Quality of voice: Phonation quality, pitch, loudness, and resonance.
- Language difficulties: Spoken and written language (listening, processing, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics). Includes prelinguistic (joint attention, intentionality, communicative behaviors) and paralinguistic communication (non-verbal language).
- Cognition: Attention, memory, problem solving, and executive functioning.
- Auditory habilitation or rehabilitation: Speech, language, communication, and listening skills impacted by hearing loss, including auditory processing.
- Feeding and swallowing
- Skills and diagnoses supported:
- Articulation
- Phonology
- Receptive language
- Expressive language
- Social/Pragmatic language
- Fluency disorders
- Apraxia
- Auditory processing
- Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
- Reading and writing
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
Therapies & Processes
Speech therapy exercises and activities vary depending on the individual’s disorder, age, and needs. Following screening and/or assessment, therapy may include:
- Interacting through talking and playing, and using books, pictures, and other objects to stimulate language development
- Using games, apps, flashcards, and worksheets to target specific skills
- Modelling correct sounds, syllables, and/or phrases during age-appropriate play to teach speech targets
- Providing strategies and homework for the child and caregiver on how to practice and generalize skills at home and across contexts
- Tools and Approaches
- Individual therapy
- Group intervention sessions
- Parent training
- Teletherapy
- Play-based intervention services
- Child-led and clinician-directed therapy approaches
- High & low Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems (e.g., PECS, SGDs)
- Social Thinking and Problem Solving
- TalkTools
- Social Stories
- The Listening Program
- PROMPT Techniques for motor speech difficulties
- ABA behavior management principles
