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Frequently Asked Questions

What are signs of a SPEECH delay or disorder?

  • Speech that is hard to understand

  • Difficulty saying certain sounds

  • Limited repertoire of sounds

  • Leaving sounds off the ends of words ("cuh" for "cup")

  • Substituting sounds ("tat" for "cat")

  • Disfluent speech/stuttering

  • Inconsistent errors in speech

  • Distorted speech sounds

  • Errors with the tone, stress, or rhythm of speech

  • Difficulty coordinating the movement from one syllable of a word to the next syllable

What are signs of a LANGUAGE delay or disorder?

  • Limited words or vocabulary

  • Speaking in single words or short phrases

  • Difficulty following directions

  • Trouble asking/answering questions

  • Pronoun errors

  • Challenges with grammar 

  • Using vague, non-descriptive language 

What are signs of a LITERACY delay or disorder?

  • Difficulty learning the alphabet and letter names

  • Difficulty learning letters sounds

  • Problems recognizing or sounding out words

  • Poor spelling

  • Slow reading

  • Challenges reading aloud fluently

  • Difficulty understanding what was read

  • A history of childhood apraxia of speech or a phonological disorder

  • A family history of dyslexia

What are signs of a FEEDING or SWALLOWING disorder?

  • Avoiding certain foods due to texture, color, and/or smell

  • Throwing tantrums at mealtimes

  • Avoiding certain food groups, eating a limited number of foods

  • Eliminating previously eaten foods 

  • Choking, gagging, or vomiting when eating

  • Oral aversion due to prolonged tube feeding

What should I expect during an evaluation?

Prior to your evaluation, you will be asked to complete new patient paperwork in our secure client portal. During the evaluation, we will review your concerns and your child's developmental history, and use this information to guide our selection of standardized. Standardized test measures provide scores that allow us to compare your child's performance to a large standardized group of same-age peers. We will also complete informal testing which will look at your child’s functional abilities outside of the standardized test. Depending on your child’s age, testing might look like play, picture naming, and/or eating a regular meal. Once testing is complete, we will provide you with a diagnosis and recommendations for treatment. An evaluation report will be available in your client portal. 

How are treatment sessions scheduled? (length, frequency, duration)

Treatment sessions are scheduled as recurring appointments on the same day and at the same time each week. Treatment Sessions are typically 30 minutes in length. If you are being seen for both speech-language and feeding services, sessions may be longer. Homework/home programming will be provided at the end of each session. 

Depending on your child’s needs, treatment will be recommended 1 or 2 times weekly. Research in our field indicates shorter sessions at a greater frequency yield better outcomes. 

The duration of treatment will vary depending on your child’s needs/diagnosis, how well your child responds to treatment, and how often you are practicing at home. We can discuss estimates for this time frame at the end of your initial evaluation.

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