What is Speech Therapy?
Speech therapy is a combination of techniques and activities that aim to improve overall communication. It addresses delays and disorders in expressive/receptive speech, articulation and oral motor dysfunction, apraxia (stuttering), feeding and swallowing as well as cognitive skills. Can do Kids offers speech therapy to children of all ages. Your child’s speech-language pathologist, or speech therapist, will work closely with them to determine their ability to communicate and understand. Then, they will create customized Pediatric Speech Therapy sessions that are based on the child’s speech and language goals.
Speech therapy may also be required for children who have suffered speech impairments due to illness or injury. Speech therapy may be necessary for a number of reasons. If your child does not meet the developmental milestones or is not performing well in school, you may consider intensive or ongoing speech therapy.
Why Should My Child Receive Speech Therapy?
Children can benefit from speech therapy in many ways, including:
- Improve communication to allow them to express their thoughts and feelings
- Allow them to communicate so others can understand.
- Preparing them to go to school, so they can learn with the rest of their classmates.
- Improves vocal quality
- Self-esteem and independence are increased
- Better quality of life
- Increased independence
Communication Support
Children without a voice can communicate with one another using unaided or aided communication. Communication apps, communication books for children with low or moderate tech, high-tech communication devices, and/or books on communication, as well as communication devices that are low or mid-tech. Speech and language therapy does not only include speech, it also includes language. A lot of people believe that speech therapy is only about speech, but it’s so much more.
Supports Social Skills
Proper pragmatic/social skills are essential for interacting with others in your community and daily life. Functional speech is often limited or absent, and pragmatic language skills can be significantly delayed and/or disordered. Video modeling, role-playing, and social stories can all be used to improve social skills. Speech therapy is important because it uses aided communication to improve these social skills.
Reading Helps
Speech delay can lead to problems in listening, reading, and writing. Communication can be greatly improved by improving your literacy and reading skills. You can communicate easily if you are able to spell. These essential skills are key to improving communication with others.
Enhances Alternative Communication Methods
Other communication strategies such as gestures and sign language, approximations, and vocalizations can be used to assist communication. We communicate using a holistic communication approach as humans. Communication can be done via speech, facial expressions, and gestures.
Teaching how to communicate using other methods than aided communication. Use the sign for “bathroom”, eat and drink, tap on someone’s shoulder to get his attention, etc. Make sure to make the sounds meaningful if they are used regularly by a child. If a child can spell “ha”, use it for “help”. If the individual is unable to say “ha”, you could use “ba” for “book”.
Communication Frustrations Are Reduced
Speech therapy is a way for children to improve their communication skills with adults and other children. Special exercises are used to improve speech muscles. It involves repeating sounds and imitating speech therapists.
The Bottom Line
It is a good idea to start speech therapy before problems become more severe. This will help your child be more successful at school, increase their self-esteem and become independent communicators. The goal of Pediatric Speech Therapy, which is a form of speech therapy, is to improve self-esteem and independence. It can help with communication skills such as speaking clearly, fluently speaking, and understanding and expressing one’s feelings. Speech-language therapy is available to all ages.