Speech Therapy Q & A
What is speech therapy?
Speech therapy helps your child develop a variety of skills to help them communicate effectively. For example, your speech therapist can assist your child to improve their:
- Listening skills
- Grammar
- Vocabulary
- Literacy
- Ability to ask and answer questions
- Social skills
More than just helping your child pronounce words and form sentences, speech therapy improves reading, interpreting nonverbal clues, and other communication methods that extend beyond words. These skills enable your child to participate in and respond to the world around them with confidence.
The speech therapists at Scottsdale Pediatric Behavioral Services provide customized speech and language therapy for a variety of speech and language disorders, including:
- Problems understanding or processing language
- Problems expressing themselves such as a limited vocabulary
- Cognitive-communication skills
- Articulation disorders
- Fluency disorders such as stuttering and stammering
- Voice disorders
The team provides a comprehensive analysis of your child’s needs before creating a personalized speech therapy plan.
What are the signs that my child needs speech therapy?
All children develop at their own pace, including speech and language skills. Some of the signs that your child might need speech therapy include:
- You and other people have trouble understanding your child
- Others think your child is younger because of the way they speak
- Your child is being teased about the way they talk
- Your child has a limited vocabulary compared to their peers
- Your child is struggling with literacy skills
- Your child’s play seems unusual
The team at Scottsdale Pediatric Behavioral Services includes speech and language assessments in their overall evaluation of your child. They use specific tests to measure your child’s skills and identify areas of weakness or potential disorders.
How can speech therapy help my child?
Speech and language disorders can have a long-lasting effect on your child’s life. It can interfere with their social development and ability to thrive academically.
For example, while a lisp might seem cute in a three-year-old, that lisp isn’t going to help an older child succeed. It could lead to low self-confidence and underachievement throughout their life.
Speech therapy can help your child learn to communicate clearly and build the language skills they need to thrive in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
If you’re concerned about your child’s speech and language skills, call Scottsdale Pediatric Behavioral Services or make an appointment online today.