SPEECH & LANGUAGE
Speech Pathology: It's More Than Stuttering, Articulation and Language Therapy
WHEN SHOULD I SEEK AN EVALUATION?
Know when it's beneficial to receive the services of a qualified Speech Pathologist.
Not only do speech pathologists work with patients who:
- cannot make speech sounds
- have rhythm and fluency problems
- problems understanding and producing language
- have cognitive communication impairments
They also work with patients who have oral motor problems causing eating and swallowing difficulties.
These impairments can result from brain injury, stroke, cerebral palsy, cleft palate, hearing loss, mental retardation, or emotional problems.
Speech pathologists help patients develop, or recover, reliable communication skills so patients can fulfill their educational, vocational, and social roles.
SERVICES
- Swallow Evaluations: assess swallow function for eating skills in a clinical evaluation, or in radiology, by performing a modified barium swallow.
- Voice Disorders: vocal hygiene, voice disorders caused by nodules, tears, paralysis and vocal abuse
- Electrical Stimulation: stimulation of facial muscle function following a stroke, injury, Bell’s Palsy or chemotherapy and Vital Stimulation for pharyngeal muscles to increase swallowing
- Deep Pharyngeal Neuromuscular Stimulation: stimulation of pressure points in throat to increase swallow function
- Electro-larynx Training: artificial voice device training for persons without a larynx
- Feeding Disorders: helping persons with cleft palate, failure to thrive, or oral sensory issues, learn to eat
- Sign Language: teaching hand language to deaf or hard of hearing persons (Includes: American sign language, Exact signed English and cued speech)
- Augmentative Communication: using devices to talk for non-verbal persons (Includes: picture exchange, TTY and electronic picture devices that can, or can not, talk for the user)
- Accent Reduction Training: helping persons, who want to speak English, with skills to overcome accents and increase their intelligibility for their target audience
- Dementia Strategies: compensation strategies for persons with memory, organization, or retrieval problems
- Prosthetic Device Management: for laryngectomy and cancer patients
- Cochlear Implant Training: teaching implant patients how to discriminate sounds to interpret speech meaning
- Traumatic Brain Injury: rehabilitation for speech and language due to head injury
- Stroke Rehabilitation: rehabilitation of speech, language, reading, writing and cognitive deficits caused by stroke
- Handicapping Childhood Disorders: Downs Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Fragile X, Autism, etc.
OTHER RESOURCES