The Basic Requirements of Speech Therapy For Children
A vigilant parent would do well to monitor a child who experiences persistent stuttering in order to assess the child’s situation. An option that responsible parents should strongly consider is speech therapy for children if the child is above five years of age and still experiences persistent stuttering.
Even though it is not considered a core discipline in any medical practice, speech therapy for children is actually an especially beneficial area of treatment for improving the speech patterns of a stuttering child.
The aim of speech therapy is to treat and cure a stutter. The discipline falls under the broad umbrella of speech pathology. However, speech therapy is not merely aimed at teaching a child to speak properly, but to set right a number of speech defects and correct a child’s pattern of speech. Prior to therapy, a therapist first must identify if a child’s speech defect is due to external causes such as accidents, or whether it is a natural defect.
Whatever the cause, a speech and language therapist must first and foremost determine the defect’s severity. Practically speaking, the severity of the defect directly affects the gravity of treatment rendered, i.e. there is a direct correlation. Treatment is usually moderate for something relatively simple like a stutter, and is more intensive for more severe speech problems. Read the rest of this entry »
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An Alternative to Traditional Speech Therapy
Going to speech therapy should be an enjoyable experience. However for many it is a frustrating one. Many people experience long waiting lists or long drives to visit their speech pathologist. Once they finally get to therapy they must sit in the waiting room until their session time and possibly fight traffic on the way home.
Online Speech Therapy offers an alternative choice when seeking therapy. All speech pathologists are nationally and state certified thus they offer the same level of expertise and experience as found in a clinic. The sessions are designed similar to traditional therapy in that the speech pathologist plans the session based on the patient’s specific goals and chooses activities they think will be engaging and motivating.
However, there are many benefits to online speech therapy. The activities are highly interactive and designed by speech pathologists to target a particular goal. Each activity is then adapted to meet the specific needs of the patient. The interactive nature of the activities help engage the patient while they are learning new skills and behaviors. Each therapy session is held in real time video and audio over a secure internet site which allows for that connection between the speech pathologist and the patient. They are able to interact as they would during a traditional therapy session. Read the rest of this entry »
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Perfectly Speaking, The Dynamics of Speech Therapy
Many people think of speech therapists as a profession that only specializes in teaching the accurate production of speech sounds in words, phrases, sentences, and conversations. While articulation therapy is one aspect of speech therapy, that is not the sole duties and responsibilities of a speech therapist in a nutshell.
First things first, the correct terminology is Speech-Language Pathologist, established by the American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association. However, speech-language therapist and speech therapist are used interchangeably. Perhaps it’s easier to say the latter of the two than the first title.
Many people do not see or understand the importance of articulation therapy. Learning to hear and produce individual sounds-phonemes are vital ingredients in achieving good phonological skills, these skills are most important in learning to read. Phonemic awareness and phonological skills are essential tools in literacy and language. The smallest unit of a word, which is a sound, changes the meaning of the word. If a child does not or cannot hear or say sounds correctly, he may struggle in his academic skills. The child may demonstrate difficulty in learning to spell and sound sounds out to form a word. In this case, articulation may be warranted to help the child strengthen the necessary skills needed for emergent literacy or to master literacy skills. Therefore, articulation therapy is very valuable for a beginner reader who may have difficulty producing sounds in words. Moreover, not only is articulation therapy aiming to help improve a child’s speaking skills so that he may effectively express his ‘needs’, ‘wants’, and ‘ideas’ within his environment. Articulation therapy/speech therapy can help children in all aspects of human communication as it may improve a child’s cognitive ability, making them more aware of various language components, in addition to spelling, reading, and writing.
Tags: speech and language teaching, speech therapy