Speech Language Therapy
Signs & Sounds Speech Therapy offers a full range of speech, language, and hearing screening, evaluation, consultation and therapy services for children and adults. I provide teletherapy or in-person therapy services in my Gainesville office, in your home, or at another mutual predetermined location. I encourage parents and caregivers to participate in therapy sessions so that you can play an active role in the client's progress. I believe a team approach is essential to your success; therefore I am happy to collaborate with other professionals working with you or your child.
An evaluation is recommended prior to beginning treatment so that appropriate goals can be established and baseline data can be obtained to assist with progress tracking. If you or your loved one have already had an evaluation from another professional who can diagnose a Speech-Language Disorder (such as a school based speech language pathologist or SLP), I would be happy to use that information to establish target areas and appropriate goals.
Please see below for a description of each type of speech and language therapy service I offer.
Please contact me directly if you have any questions about how I can serve you or your loved one.
Speech Therapy
Articulation / Speech Production
Receptive & Expressive Language
Pragmatics / Social Language
Hearing Therapy
Auditory Development / (Re)habilitation
For additional information regarding speech, language, and hearing disorders and therapy, please refer to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) website. http://www.asha.org/docs/html/RP1993-00208.html
And additional information regarding typical speech and language development: http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/
Please contact me directly if you have any questions about how I can serve you or your loved one.
Signs & Sounds Speech Therapy offers a full range of speech, language, and hearing screening, evaluation, consultation and therapy services for children and adults. I provide teletherapy or in-person therapy services in my Gainesville office, in your home, or at another mutual predetermined location. I encourage parents and caregivers to participate in therapy sessions so that you can play an active role in the client's progress. I believe a team approach is essential to your success; therefore I am happy to collaborate with other professionals working with you or your child.
An evaluation is recommended prior to beginning treatment so that appropriate goals can be established and baseline data can be obtained to assist with progress tracking. If you or your loved one have already had an evaluation from another professional who can diagnose a Speech-Language Disorder (such as a school based speech language pathologist or SLP), I would be happy to use that information to establish target areas and appropriate goals.
Please see below for a description of each type of speech and language therapy service I offer.
Please contact me directly if you have any questions about how I can serve you or your loved one.
Speech Therapy
Articulation / Speech Production
- Articulation disorders are disorders of speech sound production such as articulation, phonological processing, and apraxia of speech. Signs & Sounds Speech Therapy is happy to evaluate and diagnose the presence of an articulation disorder to determine the target sound(s) that should be addressed.
- Apraxia of Speech is an impaired ability to sequence muscle movements to produce speech.
- Fluency disorders cause instances of dysfluent speech that may be characterized as stoppages, part-word repetitions, whole-word repetitions, or prolongations of certain sounds during speech production. Often fluency disorders are identified by age three; however, they can occur at any time during the life span. Fluency therapy often involves counseling and practice using strategies that can be implemented during dysfluent moments.
- Voice disorders are characterized by abnormal production and/or absences of vocal quality, pitch, loudness, resonance, and/or duration, which is inappropriate for an individual's age and/or sex.
Receptive & Expressive Language
- Language delays and disorders can occur in both understanding (receptive) and using (expressive) language. It can be seen as difficulty with phonology (sounds and sound combinations), morphology (meaningful units of language and how they are combined), syntax (word order), or semantics (word meanings). Read below for additional descriptions of skills used in both types of language in order to help you to decide if you have a concern regarding a child in your family.
- I am capable of addressing language delays and disorders using English, American Sign Language (ASL), or Cued American English (Cued Speech).
- Receptive Language: Difficulty understanding statements, following directions, and learning or retaining new words.Receptive language includes understanding spoken and signed language.
- Expressive Language: Difficulty answering questions, summarizing information, talking about experiences or talking about oneself, or the need for prolonged time to formulate his/her thoughts and ideas. Expressive language includes spoken, signed, and written language.
- Our therapist is able to analyze spoken and sign language development in children who have a documented hearing loss as well as hearing children who are born into deaf families. If areas of weakness are identified, she will create a plan to address those target areas.
Pragmatics / Social Language
- Pragmatics refers to the using and changing language to be appropriate for a given situation as well as the social rules that govern language. In English we use many expressions or figures of speech (idioms), jokes, as well as nonverbal skills for communicating (such as turn-taking and eye contact). Sometimes people have difficulty learning and abiding by the social rules of communicating. It is possible for a pragmatic disorder to exist concurrently with another disorder, such as a language disorder.
Hearing Therapy
Auditory Development / (Re)habilitation
- Children and adults with documented hearing loss may require therapy to support auditory development and use and generalization of auditory skills. Auditory (re)habilitation may include counseling, auditory training, support to find additional devices that can be of assistance, and learning communication strategies to improve your daily communication interactions. Again, spouses, parents, and caregivers are encouraged to participate in the therapy process. I am not equipped or certified to provide amplification; however I am happy to work with you with the amplification that you chose with your audiologist and to consult with your audiologist regarding programming or mapping needs.
- Auditory Habilitation: Therapy provided to someone who has not had access to auditory information before (ex: born deaf or hard of hearing).
- Auditory Rehabilitation: Therapy provided to someone who has lost their hearing later in life to regain use of auditory skills and generalization into different communication environments.
For additional information regarding speech, language, and hearing disorders and therapy, please refer to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) website. http://www.asha.org/docs/html/RP1993-00208.html
And additional information regarding typical speech and language development: http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/
Please contact me directly if you have any questions about how I can serve you or your loved one.