Areas of specialization include:
- Articulation and Phonological Delays
- Speech sound disorders and delays occur when a person has difficulty producing speech sounds correctly. A variety of techniques are used including visual, verbal, and tactile to help elicit and train the motor pattern needed to produce targeted speech sounds.
- Receptive and Expressive Language Delays and Impairments
- Language impairments include difficulty understanding others (receptive language), or sharing thoughts, information, and/or feelings (expressive language).
- Cognitive Communication Impairments
- Cognitive-communication impairments include problems organizing thoughts, paying attention, remembering, planning, and/or problem-solving. These disorders usually are part of a diagnosis such as Autism, or, may happen as a result of a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or dementia.
- Feeding Aversions and Picky Eaters
- The SLP teaches systematically provides desensitization to a variety of new foods and textures. This may include tactile or thermal stimulation of various oral structures. This is a collaborative effort between the SLP and the family.
- Swallowing Difficulty
- Swallowing disorders (dysphagia) are feeding and swallowing difficulties, which may follow an illness, surgery, stroke, or injury. Christine is trained in the use of VitalStim for adult patients with difficulty swallowing. To learn more about this type of therapy, click here.
- Pre and Post Frenectomy oral motor training and exercises
- Noxious Habits
- Does your child still use their thumb or a pacifier? We can help them eliminate this detrimental oral motor habit with an easy to implement program.
- Does your child still use their thumb or a pacifier? We can help them eliminate this detrimental oral motor habit with an easy to implement program.
- Autism Spectrum and Associated Difficulties
- An individual with autism must do more than learn how to speak; they need to learn how to use language to communicate. This includes receptive and expressive language, pragmatic language, and cognitive communication.
- Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
- Those with severe speech or language problems use AAC to supplement existing speech or replace speech that is not functional. Special augmentative aids, such as picture and symbol communication boards and electronic devices, are available to help people express themselves. Use of signing may also be used or taught. The SLP will work to determine which system is most efficient and functional and teach the caregivers and individual ways to use the AAC system that will help make communication efficient and decrease frustration.
- Pragmatic Language (social language) Difficulty
- Social communication disorders occur when a person has difficulty with the use of verbal and nonverbal communication. These disorders may include problems: Greeting, commenting, asking questions, reading body language, perspective taking, figurative language, and following rules for conversation and story-telling.
- Reading Difficulties
- If your child has trouble reading and spelling, speech therapy may not seem like the obvious answer, but our speech therapists are trained to work with and teach strategies for phonological awareness, which is a prerequisite skill for reading. For kids with reading issues such as dyslexia, speech therapy can help them hear and distinguish specific sounds in words (i.e. the word bat breaks down into b, a, and t sounds). Speech therapists also teach reading comprehension strategies, which helps improve receptive and expressive language skills.