I specialize in treating speech sound disorders:
Articulation (physical sound production)– Even if a child is using long sentences, if their sound production is not clear they won’t be understood.
Oral Motor Impairment (muscle status and movements)– When muscle structure and function are to blame for unclear speech. A child can have low or high muscle tone, keeping them from producing clear and intelligible speech.
Phonology (sound representation in the brain)– Sometimes we can say individual sounds, but not in every part of every word. Struggles with sound concepts early on can lead to reading difficulties later if not appropriately addressed.
Childhood Apraxia of Speech/ CAS (the motor plan and coordination of speech)– Sometimes a child knows what they want to say and their muscle structure and function is fine, but the pathway from the brain where that word is stored to the mouth muscles that move, is disrupted. Their ability to store motor sequences after saying a word correctly may also be impaired, so even if they get the word right once, they struggle to repeat it correctly again.
I also treat the following often co-occurring impairments:
Receptive Language (what we understand)– Children need to comprehend the content of language to appropriately respond to it!
Expressive Language (what we say)– Children need language output to communicate their wants and needs.
Voice (the quality of our vocal output)– Vocal nodules can be common in children who over-use their voice, or who have a medical history of intubation as infants. Rough, deep and scratchy voices may sound cute now, but can cause a serious barrier to life function later on if not addressed properly in childhood.