Our Clinical Specialties
Autism & Social Communication
Supporting children with Autism and their families takes an individualized approach. Speech therapy sessions are going to vary tremendously based on a child’s interests, age, play skills, and current level of communication. Some areas we might address are:
Finding a child’s motivation to communicate and teaching them to utilize their communication to access activities they enjoy
Varying what a child uses their communication for, including showing something to a parent or peer, engaging in humor, or seeking help, just to name a few.
Apraxia of Speech
Children who experience Apraxia of Speech benefit from a speech therapist who is able to use a variety of approaches to best suit their learning style. We start with finding a child’s motivation to communicate and build in opportunities in play for a LOT of practice. Our speech therapist has more than 50 hours of continuing education in supporting children with Apraxia and utilizes the following evidence-based approaches throughout sessions:
PROMPT: Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets
DTTC: Dynamic Temporal Tactile Cueing
Kaufman Speech-to-Language Protocol
Language Delays & Disorders
By 2-years old, children are using over 50 words minimum and starting to make 2-word phrases (mommy eat!). By 3-years-old, they are more conversational, making phrases and answering more questions. Speech therapy for children experiencing a language delay or disorder might focus on:
Receptive Language - What a child understands
Expressive Language - What a child verbally expresses
Articulation & Phonological Disorders
Articulation and Phonological Disorders vary from a child who has challenges saying one phoneme (example: lisping on “s”) to a child who may have a variety of sound errors, following different patterns (example: “top” for “stop” or “tup” for “cup”). Either way, our speech therapist can create an individualized therapy plan to support your child and provide you with regular home exercise.
Feeding Challenges & Picky Eaters
There are a variety of ways speech therapy can support your child with feeding challenges and picky eating. After a thorough evaluation and parent interview, we’ll create an individualized plan to support you and your child on their feeding journey, based on what specifically is impacting their feeding at this time. Some areas may include:
Oral motor skills, including supporting a child with chewing food and managing food in their mouth
Sensory challenges, including difficulties with different textures of food or preferences for particular textures
Behavioral challenges, including children who have learned patterns impacted by negative feeding experiences in the past
Executive Functioning
Speech therapy to support children with challenges in Executive Functioning may have goals related to identifying problems & brainstorming solutions, planning, organizing, & initiating steps to complete an activity, and cognitive flexibility. We love incorporating:
Experiential learning, such as science experiments or baking activities, to support kids in understanding what’s necessary to complete the task, what steps are required, and what the activity will look like when done.
School-projects, with support in understanding the assignment and the sequence of steps required. We can also support kids in learning organizational strategies to support completing projects on time!
Problem-solving throughout their daily tasks to determine where they have time thieves, managing time, and gaining efficiency in their daily routines.
Speech therapy in Pflugerville, Round Rock, and Northeast Austin
Reach out to us directly through our website and we’ll be in touch within 24-48 hours to answer any questions you may have about speech therapy services for your child.