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Treatment Areas

Executive Functions 

Executive Functions are a complex group of skills that effect how we perceive, think, feel and act in the world. 

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Skills to target may include 

  • Attention 

  • Working Memory

  • Time Management 

  • Inhibition 

  • Flexibility and flexible thinking 

  • Starting tasks and projects 

  • Stopping tasks even when you dont want to

  • Organization 

  • Self Monitoring 

  • Self Regulation 

  • Prioritizing 

  • Decision Making 

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Here is a blog post with an overview of executive functions! 

Pragmatic Language 

Pragmatic language aka, social language, is language in context and metacognitive skills. I  acknowledge that 'pragmatic language' goals do not always align with neurodiversity affirming therapy and so what we work on varies depending on the needs of each child.  

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Skills to target may include

  • Perspective taking 

  • Understanding social dynamics 

  • Problem Solving 

  • Figurative Language - such as metaphors, sarcasm, personification 

  • Self Advocacy 

  • Emotions - understanding and awareness 

  • Self Acceptance 

  • Learning the different types of skills involved in conversations

Articulation 

  • Articulation skills are the ability to produce speech sounds. This involves all sorts of coordination between the tongue, teeth, mouth and brain. 

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  • Articulation errors can happen on one sound, multiple sounds and groups of sounds. 

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  • Single errors may be when a child says 'wuve' for love or 'doe' for go. 

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  • Therapy for single errors can include

    • Hearing the difference in the correct and errored sounds

    • Direct instruction on making the sound

    • Practicing at the sound, word, sentence and finally conversation level 

    • Practicing carry-over so a child says their sound accurately at work, home, school, etc 

    • Building confidence if a child is hesitant to speak because of their errors 

 

See what speech sounds are expected by what age by clicking the link

Language  

Language includes all the ways we communicate with each other. It is what we say and understand, what we write, read, and communicate through body language. â€‹

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Skills to target may include

  • Expressive Language 

  • Receptive Language 

  • Understanding stories 

  • Retelling stories

  • Auditory Comprehension 

  • Sentence length

  • Complex sentences 

  • Grammar 

  • Increasing vocabulary 

  • Writing 

  • Concrete and Abstract concepts 

Stuttering

Stuttering is when someone has difficulty with speech fluency, or smooth forward flow of speech. They may repeat single sounds, whole words, or the words get 'stuck' and they struggle to speak.

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Skills to target may include

  • Identifying true stuttering from other types of disfluencies that everyone experiences 

  • Learning about stuttering 

  • Talking about the feelings that come with stuttering

  • Practicing strategies to use when stuttering

  • Reducing tension when stuttering 

  • Increasing confidence in children who stutter

  • Practicing strategies in different contexts, like doing a presentation for class or making a phone call 

Phonological Disorders 

  • Phonological disorders are when a child has multiple errors in their speech sounds. These "phonological processing" errors often have a pattern. 

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  • A child may not be able to 'k' and 'g sounds. Sometimes they aren't saying all the syllables in a word so butterfly becomes 'bupie".  Or they do not say the sound at the end of their words, so boots becomes 'boo'. 

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  • Most phonological processes are normal in development. These processes becomes a disorder when a child is using them beyond the age that typical.

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  • Therapy for multiple errors can include

    • Identifying the patterns in error

    • Finding an approach that is evidence based, depending on the errors and needs of the child

    • Increasing their intelligibility, aka the ability to be understood

    • Teaching strategies for when they are not understood 

    • Auditory discrimination and recognizing their errors 

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See what phonological processes are typical and the ages they should stop by clicking link 

 

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