Speech and Language Services

Articulation is the production of speech sounds.

If your child has difficulty with articulation, perhaps their speech is hard for others to understand. They may drop sounds, substitute sounds, or distort sounds.

Refer to this PDF to see if your child has learned the sounds they should know at their age.

What is receptive language? Receptive language is how children understand language and how they assign meaning to words. Children who have difficulties with receptive language may have difficulty following directions, understanding simple or complex sentences, vocabulary, word relationships (e.g. shoe and foot go together because you wear a shoe on your foot). Understanding language also includes understanding the differences with basic concepts (e.g. on the table vs. under the table).

What is expressive language? Expressive language is how children put words together to communicate a message. Children who have difficulty with expressive language may have difficulty putting words in order to make a sentences or to ask a question, using correct vocabulary, answering questions, using correct grammar, using describing words, and using basic concepts (e.g. in, on).

What is social (pragmatic) language? Social/Pragmatic language is how a child uses language in a functional way-- with adults, peers, and community members. It also includes conversational skills (e.g. starting a conversation, taking conversational turns, ending a conversation), use of greetings, protesting and refusing, requesting, and commenting. This also includes understanding and using appropriate personal space, tone, and volume for the situation.

In addition to speaking with your pediatrician, you can access expected language skills for multiple age levels here: http://firstyears.org/miles/chart.html

What is Fluency? Fluency refers to how smoothly the child is able to get their words out.

Many children demonstrate normal "dysfluencies" as they are learning language and expanding vocabulary.

Normal dysfluencies can include:

• using filler words (e.g. uh and umm)
• fixing a sentence (e.g. My mom went to, well we had a ..)
• phrase repetition (e.g., I want..I want...I want a cookie)

What is phonological awareness? Phonological awareness is the knowledge of sounds in a language and how those sounds blend together to form words, phrases and sentences.

Children need to be able to discriminate between sounds to develop reading, spelling, and writing skills. This includes skills such as segmenting sounds, blending sounds, manipulating sounds, rhyming, blending syllables and sentences.

A speech therapist can help a student who has voice issues including:

• harshness
• hoarseness
• breathiness
• difficulty with volume control