What types of conditions and disorders do you treat?
We treat a large range of conditions and disorders, including, but not limited to:
Speech Sound Disorders
Individual sounds are the basic units that make up speech. Often times, individuals have difficulties in acquiring these sounds which may impact that person’s speech intelligibility, the degree to which that person is understood by others. Errors of speech sounds can be described as substitutions, omissions, distortions, and additions. Speech sound disorders are typically divided into articulation disorders (difficulty executing the muscular coordinations necessary to produce a specific sound or sounds) and phonological disorders (lack of understanding of the rules that govern the production and combination of speech sounds). Speech therapy has been demonstrated to be effective in improving or correcting these disorders.
Fluency Disorders
Fluency disorders affect the continuity, rate, rhythm, effort, prosody, and/or naturalness of an individual’s speech. The two most prevalent fluency disorders are stuttering and cluttering. Through speech therapy, individuals learn how to control these aspects of their speech.
Voice Disorders
A voice disorder affects the pitch, quality, or loudness of the voice. While some of these disorders may require medical intervention, many can be remediated or improved through voice therapy administered by a speech-language pathologist. Even in cases of surgical correction, voice therapy is recommended before and after a medical procedure to ensure healthy and efficient use of the voice.
Resonance Disorders
Disorders of resonance may occur as a result of an inadequate velopharyngeal mechanism caused by structural abnormalities. This may result in hypernasality or hyponasality. Surgical intervention is required to repair the structures associated with these disorders. However, a speech-language pathologist is effective in treating errors regarding resonance that persist after such a surgery is implemented, as well as providing compensatory strategies to promote better resonance.
Language Disorders
Language can be broken down into the domains of semantics , syntax , morphology , phonology , and pragmatics .
A variety of disorders can affect one’s ability to understand or produce one or more of these aspects of language. Language therapy addresses the client-specific deficits to work towards optimal linguistic functioning across academic, social, and occupational settings.