Speech and Language Therapy

Speech and Language Therapy for children targets all areas of spoken and written language. It helps:

Children with difficulties pronouncing speech sounds, acquiring vocabulary, and/or difficulties understanding and building sentences.
To develop the movements of tongue and lips and to improve speech clarity.
To improve fluency of speech.
children acquire social interaction skills like making eye contact, turn taking, expressing feelings appropriately, and solving problems cooperatively.
To develop reading, writing and spelling.
Children with a hoarse voice or loss of voice.
To correct swallowing pattern and supports orthodontic and dental treatment.

Common diagnoses include Articulation Disorder, Speech Delay, Language Delay, Stuttering, Stammering, Tongue Thrusting, Social Communication Disorder, and Dyslexia.

Each one might be a distinct diagnosis or may occur within the context of other conditions.

Speech and Language Therapy supports children with special needs and who have been diagnosed e.g. with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Asperger’s Syndrome, Down’s Syndrome, hearing loss, cleft lip and palate, or Cerebral Palsy.

If you have any concerns regarding your child’s speech and language development an assessment with our Speech and Language Therapist will help to identify possible delays or impairments.

Based on the the results the therapist will provide an individual treatment plan to improve your child’s speech and language skills and support you with implementing necessary practice at home.

Speech and language therapy happens in close cooperation with all caregivers involved. Our Speech Therapist frequently invites parents to attend the therapy sessions in order to observe and learn techniques. She visits nurseries and schools to be in direct contact with teachers and achieve cooperation based on mutual understanding.

Depending on the child’s age and the diagnoses, our therapist will choose scientifically proven programs to facilitate speech and/or language acquisition alongside social interaction strategies, which support the child in the most natural way possible.

For us at STEPS it is an important principle of Speech and Language Therapy to facilitate language skills in meaningful situations and give the child many opportunities to use those new skills within the context of genuine communication.