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Speech Therapy

Speech and language therapy aims to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive-communication, voice and swallowing disorders in children and adults.

  • Explicitly, speech disorders occur when a person has difficulty producing speech sounds correctly or fluently (e.g., stuttering is a form of disfluency) or has problems with his or her voice or resonance.
  • Language disorders occur when a person has trouble understanding others (receptive language), or sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings (expressive language). Language disorders may be spoken or written and may involve the form (phonology, morphology, syntax), content (semantics), and/or use (pragmatics) of language in functional and socially appropriate ways.
  • Social communication disorders occur when a person has trouble with the social use of verbal and nonverbal communication. These disorders may include problems (a) communicating for social purposes (e.g., greeting, commenting, asking questions), (b) talking in different ways to suit the listener and setting, and (c) following rules for conversation and story-telling. All individuals with autism spectrum disorder have social communication problems. Social communication disorders can also be detected for individuals with other conditions, such as traumatic brain injury.
  • Cognitive-communication disorders include problems organizing thoughts, paying attention, remembering, planning, and/or problem-solving. These disorders result usually from a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or dementia, although they can be congenital.
  • Swallowing disorders (dysphagia) are feeding and swallowing difficulties, which may follow an illness, surgery, stroke, or injury.

Additionally, SLPs:

  • Provide aural rehabilitation for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.
  • Provide augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems for individuals with severe expressive and/or language comprehension disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder or progressive neurological disorders.
  • Work with people who don’t have speech, language, or swallowing disorders, but willing to learn how to communicate more effectively (e.g., work on accent modification or other forms of communication enhancement).

SLPs work with the full range of human communication and swallowing disorders in individuals of all ages. SLPs:

  • Evaluate and diagnose speech, language, communication, and swallowing disorders.
  • Treat speech, language, communication, and swallowing disorders.
  • Provide training and education to family/caregivers and other professionals.
  • Work collaboratively with professionals from many other disciplines.