Speech therapy looks at a child’s communication development from birth and how they can be best supported as they are growing. Communication can be about speech (production of sounds), language (speaking and understanding language) socialisation skills (e.g. body language, playing, conversations, forming friendships), and literacy (reading and writing).
Speech Pathologists or Speech Therapists aim to assist children to communicate and build relationships independently and confidently, at home and across all environments in which the child participates. Speech Pathologists work collaboratively with families and teachers at home and school, as well as other allied health professionals to support children across all environments they participate in.
Our mission is to promote happy participation for children in their school, home and community using up-to-date, evidenced-based activities and programs. We structure our therapy to achieve the child and their family’s goals while also making it a fun, positive and engaging environment.
Speech Pathologists work with children with various conditions including (but not limited to):
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Global Development Delay
- Intellectual Disability
- Cerebral Palsy
- Downs Syndrome
- Specific Learning Disorder
- Language delay or disorder
Areas our Speech Pathologists can help with assessing and working on the following:
- Language (receptive and expressive)
- Articulation (speech sound production)
- Social skills
- Alternative Augmentative Communication (i.e. ways of communicating besides talking – e.g. sign language, pictures, communication devices)
- Stuttering
- Literacy (reading and spelling)
And much more!
Speech therapy goals work with the building blocks of communication which means your child might need to work on skills in the lower levels of the pyramid before working on higher levels like communication. Beyond this pyramid are literacy and academic achievement, where the child focuses on reading and spelling. A child’s progression throughout the stages of communication will vary and Speech Pathologist work closely with families to identify appropriate goals and support them to develop the communication skills they need to progress through the pyramid.