When a child has trouble understanding others (receptive language), or sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings completely (expressive language), then he or she may have a language disorder. Many children have problems with both understanding and talking.
A speech disorder is an impairment of the articulation of speech sounds, fluency and/or voice. Most children make some mistakes as they learn to say new words. A speech sound disorder occurs when mistakes continue past a certain age or when mistakes are not developmentally expected. Every sound has a different range of ages when the child should make the sound correctly. Speech sound disorders include problems with articulation (making sounds) and phonology (sound patterns), and apraxia (motor speech disorder caused by difficulty with the idea, planning and execution of the muscle movements needed for speech), dysarthria (motor speech disorder caused by weakness in any of the muscles required for speech/respiration)
Pediatric occupational therapy helps children gain independence and promotes development of fine motor skills, sensory motor skills, and visual motor skills that children need to function and socialize in their home, school, play, and community environments.
Our occupational therapists evaluate and treat children from birth to 21 years of age with a variety of diagnoses including:
Tongue thrusting is the habit of placing the tongue in the wrong position during swallowing, either too far forward or to the sides.
A speech-language pathologist (SLP) is a highly-trained professional who evaluates and treats children and adults who have difficulty with speech or language and swallowing. A speech-language pathologist should be licensed by the state and certified by the American Speech Language and Hearing Association.
When parents are concerned about their child's speech and language development, they should see a licensed speech-language pathologist certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association for a professional evaluation. The speech-language pathologist can administer tests of receptive and expressive language as well as speech sound production, analyze a child's utterances in various situations, determine factors that may be slowing down speech and/or language development, and counsel parents as to the next steps to take.
When you call our office, we will be happy to discuss your needs and schedule an appointment.
We are in-network with most major health insurance companies. We will help you determine if your insurance will cover speech therapy.
We are a vendor for the San Diego Regional Center. We provide speech therapy for children who are eligible for California Early Start Services. We also provide the Hanen, It Takes Two To Talk, parent training course for families referred through the regional center.