How Speech Therapy Can Support Your Child with a Speech Disorder

Working with a speech therapist is very similar to working with a physical therapist, at least as far as the repetitive goes. The person getting the therapy will have regular appointments with their speech therapist to screen and track their progress and will be given stress-free exercises to work on at home to make further progress. For children with a speech disorder, the parents will be an essential part of the process. Our health center provides speech therapy for children in addition to physical therapy, so be sure to give us a call if you need these services. Here’s an earlier look at how speech therapy can support a child with a speech disorder.

Types of Speech Disorders in Kids

The work that a speech therapist does with your child will mainly depend on the type of speech disorder being cured. You have perhaps heard of stuttering, which is one of the most common disorders, but that is just the slope of the iceberg. A speech illness can also include apraxia or dysarthria. Apraxia is a disorder that is usually nerve in origin and can be caused by impairment to the brain, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or other health conditions. Dysarthria is a speech disorder initiated by a problem with the muscles in the mouth, face or breathing system.

Identifying a Speech Disorder:

Your speech-language therapist can check your child for a speech disorder. These assessments will likely lead to a diagnosis of the precise type of condition that needs to be treated. In other cases, your child may have an autism diagnosis from your pediatrician and was mentioned to us for speech therapy. Anyway, testing can help to control whether the speech disorder involves apraxia, dysarthria or a mixture of factors. Here are some of the most collective types of tests used to detect speech disorders in children.

• Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test– This test has been used to diagnose speech disorders for times. The therapist performs words and the child identifies an associated picture that matches each word. This test measures the child’s vocabulary and observes their ability to speak.
• Early Language Milestone Scale 2– The ELM Scale-2 assessment takes about 10 minutes to complete and is used to measure language milestones in children up to 3 years of age, or older children who developmentally decrease within this range.
• Denver Articulation Screening Examination (DASE)– This is a growing screening test designed for children between 2 months and 5 years of age. It tests communication, gross motor skills, and fine motor skills, problem-solving and social skills.

Speech Therapy in Action:

Your child’s work with a speech therapist will depend on the type of speech disorder confirmed during the diagnosis phase. One of our speech-language therapists will work with your kid in a calm, friendly setting on a series of exercises. You may have one or more sessions per week, depending on the child’s needs. The speech therapy exercises can range from tasks that support the muscles of the face, tongue, and throat to vocabulary development and even basic communication skills like making eye contact when speaking to others. It all depends on where your child is developmental. In addition, by keeping up with fixed appointments with the speech therapist, the exercises and focus may change or modify to help better meet your child’s needs.