In-Person Speech Therapy for Kids

Speech Sound Production (Articulation & Phonology)

Parents wonder “Why can’t others understand my child?” “Is this normal?” “When will my child’s speech errors go away?”

Is your child unable to say certain sounds? Does their speech sounds “slushy”? Do teachers, friends or family have a hard time understanding your child?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then your child may be having difficulty with their speech sound production.

Recent research (McLeod & Crowe, 2018) indicates that most (90%) of children (U.S.) say all their sounds correctly by age 6:

Sometimes children use patterns to make sounds easier to say. These are called phonological processes. Children with phonological disorders can be very difficult to understand since they have trouble saying entire groups of speech sounds.  For example, some children tend to drop the final sounds of words in a phonological process called “final consonant deletion”. Instead of “cake”, they say “cay”, and “dog”may be “daw”. 

Our Speech Language Therapists can help figure out what is causing your child’s speech to be unclear and create a therapy plan that is the best fit for your child.  It might be one or more sounds they are missing, or a phonological process that is at fault.

Motor Speech

Children with motor speech disorders have difficulty sequencing the movements for speech. They have trouble planning and coordinating their lips, tongue or jaw (called the ‘articulators’) which significantly impacts their ability to speak clearly.

Some children with motor speech disorders may have a specific disorder called “Childhood Apraxia of Speech”. This is a specific diagnosis made by a doctor in the province of Ontario. Some of the key features of Childhood Apraxia of Speech include:

• Limited repertoire of speech sounds
• Variable errors
• Unusual sound errors
• “Choppy” sounding speech
• Physical tension of the mouth (groping) when starting to talk

Our SLPs can help determine if your child is having difficulty with motor speech production and provide treatment to improve their motor speech skills.

Early Language Development

Many parents wonder “should I be worried if my child hasn’t said their first words yet?” Are you worried that your toddler has fewer words or talks less than their peers? Do you feel that your toddler understands what you are saying but does not talk very much themselves?

Your child may be a ‘late talker’. A ‘late talker’ is a general term that describes delayed talking for a number of reasons. Some late talkers are delayed in overall communication abilities, others often have a good understanding of what is said to them, but they don’t use many words for their age. Still others may have some more serious developmental concerns that are first appearing as late talking.

These issues can be worrying. A Speech Language Therapy assessment can compassionately help determine if your child is experiencing early language delays. Our Speech Language Pathologists know what helps to catch these children up in their language abilities. They can teach you and coach you in play-based sessions so that you know how to support your child’s language development

Fluency (Stuttering)

A parent may ask “Why has my child started stuttering recently?” Does your child avoid speaking in class because they have trouble getting their words out? Do they get frustrated because they can’t get the words they want to say to come out smoothly?

Fluency in speech means the “forward flow of speech”. Stuttering occurs when there are interruptions to this “forward flow”. There are different kinds of stuttering that can occur:

• Repeating sounds (e.g. p-p-p-puppy)
• Repeating words (e.g. some-some-some-some help)
• Stretching out words (e.g. mmmmmmmy house)
• Blocking during speech (e.g. my……… house)

While young children may not be aware of their stutter, as children get older there often can be negative emotions tied to it, such as fear or embarrassment. Our Speech Language Pathologists can create a plan to support your child’s fluency and ability to communicate with confidence.

Struggling Readers (Literacy Intervention)

Did you know Speech Therapists can support young children’s early literacy skills or what is called “phonological awareness”? You may be wondering “Why is my child having a hard time learning how to read?” or “Why does my child have such trouble spelling words?”

Phonological awareness is the recognition and manipulation of words, syllables, and sounds. This is a primary area of need for children who most children are struggling to read. Phonological awareness skills include things like rhyming, splitting apart a word into syllables, splitting a word into sounds, blending sounds together, identifying sounds in a word.
Our Speech Therapists can work on phonological awareness for kids just learning or struggling to learn to read. A Speech Language Therapy program to target these skills can really help your child catch up to peers and succeed in a classroom situation.

Written Language

Parents may notice one or more of these:

• My child is intelligent but not getting great grades
• Teachers say my child is not getting much written during class
• My child has an EA to sit with them during any writing
• My child seems unsure how to get started or what to write if I ask them to write a paragraph.
• My child writes a few things but doesn’t know how to turn their assignment into a 4+

Our Speech Therapists can help determine if your child is having difficulty with certain areas of written language. Issues with spelling, reading, comprehension, organization and executive function can all interfere with getting assignments onto paper.

Our therapists can provide support to your child with their written assignments and teach them a plan for how to proceed at times when they don’t have support. It is thrilling to see kids go from underachieving to overachieving in their written communication. Call us so we can help.