Outpatient Services

Screenings are available to identify children who may be at risk for speech and language delays. The screening provides a brief summary of a child’s speech, language, and hearing skills. From these results, the speech-language pathologist determines whether skills seem to be age-appropriate or require further testing or if therapy is recommended.

A comprehensive assessment determines strengths and weaknesses of the child’s speech and language skills and defines the goals for therapy. Depending on the focus of the assessment, standardized tests, parent questionnaires, informal sampling, and other tools are used to gather information regarding the child’s abilities.

Therapy is scheduled in 30 to 60 minute sessions ranging from one to four sessions per week. Sessions are typically scheduled between 8:30-5:30 Monday through Friday.  Therapy is scheduled at a convenient time for the family and therapist.  Frequency/length is determined by a child’s age and needs.

Literacy Group

Our Literacy Groups will focus on building a solid foundation for reading through phonological awareness.  Phonological awareness is the ability to attend to and manipulate units of sounds in speech independent of meaning.  Noticing and being able to manipulate the sounds of spoken language is highly related to later success in reading and spelling.  We will address print awareness, responsiveness to rhyme and alliteration in word play, syllable awareness (counting, tapping, blending, or segmenting a word into syllables), onset and rime manipulation, as well as phoneme awareness (identifying initial/final/middle sounds, segmenting sounds in words, blending sounds into words, and manipulating phonemes by removing, adding or substituting sounds.) We will have fun learning by reading books and playing a variety of games to improve phonological awareness skills in our small group sessions.  Each child will have a binder with weekly activities sent home focusing on the aforementioned goals.

Social Skills Group

Our Social Skills Groups will focus on teaching children to be more successful communicators. We work on many skill areas while participating in structured games/activities and child-led play with facilitation.  Skill areas include social greeting, self-regulation, joint attention, interactive play, turn-taking, sharing, expressing emotions, responding to and asking questions, initiating and maintaining conversation, and understanding verbal and nonverbal social cues.  Each child will have a binder with session descriptions so that parents can talk to children about the activities and the participants for each session.

The therapists are available as consultants to community professionals to assist families in providing a complete program for their child. Family permission is always obtained before exchanging information with another professional and the family is consulted regarding what information may/may not be shared.

For children who are too young or developmentally unable to participate in standardized testing, this initial visit is used for observations and informal assessments, to gather information from parents, and to determine if therapy is recommended. The visit is 45-60 minutes. Verbal and written feedback are provided to parents.