Upper East Side Speech Therapy: Articulation & Language Services for Children
A speech therapist or speech-language pathologist helps children improve speech clarity through articulation and oral motor therapy. Speech therapy also addresses language skills, including facilitating first words and improving sentence length, vocabulary, grammar, and thinking skills.
Articulation Therapy & Oral Motor Therapy
If your child has difficulty being understood or saying specific sounds, articulation therapy may improve speech clarity. Articulation therapy involves targeting one sound or a group of related sounds simultaneously. Play and game-based activities surrounding target sounds make treatment fun!
In traditional articulation therapy, your child observes correct models of target sounds and uses a mirror and/or video for feedback to correct mispronounced sounds. Tactile cues include oral motor techniques to help your child feel the correct jaw, lips, and tongue placement. Sometimes, children can say a target sound in isolation or a word but have difficulty using the sound in conversation.
Oral motor therapy addresses jaw, lip, and tongue weakness and may create muscle memory for target speech sounds. This helps bridge the gap between saying a sound in isolation (or not at all) and saying target sounds in rapid conversation.
For more details, please listen to Stephanie’s articulation podcast.
Language Evaluation & Language Therapy (For Children Through Age Six)
If your child is not talking, or if you feel your child doesn’t have the sophisticated language skills of peers, a language evaluation may be appropriate.
A formal or informal language evaluation can reveal problematic language skills. Targeting these weak areas, which may include enhancing vocabulary, grammar, expanding sentence length, improving following directions, play skills, attention, verbal problem-solving, and thinking skills, will help your child’s language skills flourish.
Please listen to Stephanie’s language podcast for additional information.
About Stephanie’s Speech Therapy Services
Articulation, Oral Motor Therapy, and Language Evaluation and Language Therapy are offered in your Upper East Side home. If appropriate, virtual sessions are available.
Why You Should Choose Stephanie for Speech Therapy
Following an evaluation, Stephanie will discuss whether weekly speech, oral motor, and/or language therapy is appropriate for your child.
She arrives fully prepared for each session with a plan and tools to elicit the established goals.
At the end of therapy sessions, Stephanie will share your child’s progress with you (verbally or in writing).
She continuously evaluates as she provides therapy; goals will advance as appropriate.
Homework will be provided. Goals are typically met more rapidly when parents/caregivers consistently use prescribed techniques, which Stephanie will teach you. One or two therapy hours a week are helpful, but when your child engages in optimal communication throughout the day, significant progress often occurs, and speech therapy may become no longer necessary.
“Just right” homework will be assigned so your child feels successful and motivated with tailored speech and/or language tasks.
Stephanie will combine homework ideas into your daily routines. Walking to school with your four-year-old? Take turns playing “I Spy.” Walking past a construction sight with your toddler? Learn to use more descriptive language and ask better questions about that excavator. Reading time? Optimize vocabulary, inferencing, summarizing, and sequencing skills and learn to choose great books.
Targeted homework can be a minimum of 5-10 minutes, 3-5x/week, depending on what parents/caregivers and your child can do together. The time commitment and the material can be adjusted accordingly.
Contact Stephanie for Speech Therapy Services on the Upper East Side
If you have concerns about your child’s speech and language development, please reach out to Stephanie, as she would be happy to speak with you.
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