Speech Therapy

Speech therapy is an intervention service that focuses on improving a child's speech and abilities to understand and express language, including nonverbal language. Speech therapists, or speech and language pathologists (SLPs), are the professionals who provide these services. Speech therapy includes two components: 1) coordinating the mouth to produce sounds to form words and sentences (to address articulation, fluency, and voice volume regulation); and 2) understanding and expressing language (to address the use of language through written, pictorial, body, and sign forms, and the use of language through alternative communication systems such as social media, computers, and iPads). In addition, the role of SLPs in treating swallowing disorders has broadened to include all aspects of feeding.

Speech therapists help people of all ages with different speech and language disorders. Here are some of them:

Articulation (say: ar-tik-yuh-LAY-shun) disorders: This when a kid has trouble saying certain sounds or saying words correctly. "Run" might come out as "won." Or "say" may sound like "they." Lisps are considered articulation disorders.

Fluency (say: FLOO-en-see) disorders: If a kid repeats certain sounds and has trouble saying the complete word, he or she may have fluency disorder. For example, a kid trying to say "story" might get stuck on the "st" and say "st-st-st-story." Or he or she might draw out certain sounds and say "ssssssstory." A stutter is a fluency disorder.

Resonance (say: REZ-uh-nuhns) or voice disorders:A kid might have a voice disorder if people have trouble understanding him or her. The kids might start a sentence loud and clear, but it's quiet and mumbling by the end. Sometimes these kids sound like they have a cold or like they're talking through their noses.

language disorders: A kid who has trouble understanding people or has trouble putting words together to express thoughts might have a language disorder