Receptive Language

 Understanding what is said to them

Your child may be experiencing difficulties in understanding what you say to them.  Our speech pathologists can assist your child with learning skills such as comprehending the names of objects, understanding verbs and location words, understanding concepts and simple ‘wh’ questions and following simple and more complex instructions.

Expressive Language

 Expressing their needs and wants

Your child may be experiencing difficulties in expressing their thoughts, wants and needs.  Our speech pathologists can assist your child with learning skills such as requesting objects, commenting on what they see, expressing how they feel, calling to gain attention, making choices and answering simple and more complex questions.

Preverbal skills

Developing the many skills required in order to communicate with others

Your child may be non-verbal or have limited verbal skills and may be experiencing difficulties learning the foundation skills required to communicate.  Our speech pathologists can assist your child in learning the skills of joint attention, engagement, listening, attending to objects, turn taking, imitation, initiation, anticipation, cause and effect and object permanence.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication

Your child may benefit from using an alternative way of expressing their thoughts, wants and needs.  Our speech pathologists can assist your child with learning to use an augmentative or alternative form of communication (AAC) including informal picture boards, sign and gestures or a more formal AAC system such as Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) or Proloquo2Go (speech generating application).

Pragmatics

 The social rules of communicating and how we deliver our message

Social communication is important in order to build relationships with others.  Your child may be experiencing difficulties in using the verbal and non-verbal rules we use to communicate with others in a social context.  Our speech pathologists can assist your child to learn skills such as greeting, using eye contact, gestures, facial expressions, turn taking, body language, tone of voice and volume of voice.  

Play Skills

Play skills are important for language, cognitive and social development. Your child may be experiencing difficulties developing play skills appropriate for their age or in using toys the way they are meant to be used.  Our speech pathologists can assist your child to develop their play skills including developing early play skills, functional play skills, pretend play skills and eventually imaginative play skills, which can assist with engaging with a parent/caregiver and the development of friendships.  

Speech Clarity

Articulation of sounds, syllables and words

Your child’s speech may be difficult to understand.  Your child may be experiencing errors in speech sounds and/or in phonological processes, reducing their speech intelligibility (how well speech can be understood by others).  Your child may find it difficult to make the /s/, /l/ or /r/ sounds.  Your child may leave sounds out of words or replace difficult sounds with easier ones.  Our speech pathologists can work with you and your child to show them the steps to make a sound and when to use them so that their speech is more intelligible.

Feeding

Your child may be experiencing difficulties in eating foods that are appropriate for their age, eating a variety of foods, or eating foods safely.  Your child may prefer to eat the same foods all the time and you may consider them to be a picky or fussy eater.  Our speech pathologists can assist your child in learning skills such as biting, chewing and swallowing safely, tolerating a variety of food consistencies and increasing the variety of foods eaten.

Voice

Your child’s voice may be too loud or too quiet, nasal sounding, too high pitched or rough in quality related to vocal miss use such as yelling and shouting.  Our speech pathologist can assist your child to develop skills in using their vocal folds appropriately when talking.

Fluency

Stuttering

Your child’s speech may be bumpy or they may repeat sounds, words or phrases.  Your child may have long pauses or ‘blocks’ (word appears to be ‘stuck’) in their speech.  If this does not seem to be going away, our speech pathologists can assist you with making a plan and using strategies to assist your child to use more fluent speech.

Literacy and Phonological Skills