What is Speech-Language Therapy?
Through therapeutic play, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) help children become effective at communicating a range of wants, needs, thoughts, and ideas to those around them. Children are supported from the earliest stages of imitation and babbling, to using and understanding single words, to incorporating increasingly complex language through problem-solving and verbal reasoning in peer interactions.
Speech-language sessions may address:
• Receptive language (language comprehension), including skills such as following directions, responding to a variety of questions, understanding a range of concepts, and processing more complex sentences and stories
• Expressive language, including expanding sentences, building vocabulary, recalling and retelling stories, improving descriptive language, and augmenting verbal reasoning skills
• Pragmatic language, including building peer interactions, maintaining topics, using verbal language to problem-solve and negotiate with others, identifying and managing emotions, and expanding functional and pretend play skills
• Articulation and phonology
• Phonemic awareness and pre-literacy/literacy skills
• Oral-motor skills
• Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) such as the use of PECs, dedicated communication devices, and communication boards
• Cognition, including skills such as maintaining attention, improving working memory, sequencing activities, creating a plan, and flexible problem-solving
• Auditory processing
• Voice and fluency
• Feeding, both sensory-based and behaviorally-based