Therapy

SPEECH

Speech is the production of sounds. There are three types of speech sound disorders that are likely to occur:

• Functional speech disorders / Articulation Disorders
• Phonological disorders
• Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS)

Speech difficulties can impact on a person’s ability to acquire literacy skills as well as affecting ease of being understood, self-esteem and confidence.

Children with speech sound disorders are often taught to make new sounds. This learning occurs systematically with repeated opportunities to practice and master their new sound from isolation to conversational level.

FLUENCY

People with fluency difficulties may have trouble getting their words out, get stuck or repeat sounds, syllables or phrases or have lots of hesitations, stops and starts in their speech.

Speech dysfluencies can often be very frustrating for those experiencing them as well as making it hard for others to follow their speech.

We assess, manage and treat stuttering in pre-school, primary school and high school aged children, and adults.

Stuttering can involve the repetition of sounds, words, or phrases, the insertion of fillers (e.g. um, and) and at times blocking of words.

LANGUAGE

A language delay or disorder occurs when a child is not developing their expressive and/or receptive language skills to a level which is appropriate for their age. Language delays can persist into teenage years and adulthood. Language disorders can also occur in adults as a result of brain injury or stroke.

Expressive Language : Expressive Language is a person’s ability to express themselves using spoken, gestural, and written language. This may present as difficulties in some of the following areas:

• Combining words to form longer, detailed sentences
• Using a variety of vocabulary
• Using grammatical structures such as ‘he’ and ‘she’
• Vocabulary knowledge, i.e. concepts such as ‘big’

Receptive Language :  Receptive Language is a person’s ability to understand spoken and written language. This may present as difficulties in some of the following areas:

• Understanding instructions and questions
• Recalling or comprehending spoken information
• Understanding written information (see reading comprehension)

PRE-LITERACY & LITERARY SKILLS

Includes the following areas:

• Phonological awareness
• Letter sound awareness
• Reading
• Spelling
• Decoding – blending and segmenting skills
• Explicit teaching of sound and spelling rules

At ACM our literacy assessment and therapy process is designed to assess your child’s particular strengths and weaknesses and aims to identify the underlying causes of their literacy difficulties.

We can work on increasing a child’s pre-literacy skills when at preschool or early primary school by targeting areas such as syllables, rhyme, letter and sound identification.

We also work with primary and high school aged clients on building their reading and spelling skills by working on the following skills: segmenting and blending sounds; vowel rules and morphology rules such as prefixes, suffixes and parts of the word.

READING COMPREHENSION

Reading comprehension is the ability to understand the meaning of what you are reading. People with reading comprehension difficulties may be able to read (decode) information yet have difficulty comprehending the content.

Clinicians will work on activities such as building a person’s understanding of oral and written text types, being able to understand and to respond to questions about the text and for them to be able to summarise the text.

SOCIAL & PRAGMATIC SKILLS

Social and Pragmatic skills are how you use words and body language to communicate with other people; how we engage in play and interact with others; and how we problem solve and draw conclusions.

Social skills are an important skill needed to build social networks and have successful interactions in the community.

AUGMENTATIVE & ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION (AAC)

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), also referred to as ‘Assistive Technology’ by the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), is an area that provides communication strategies, techniques and interventions (devices/systems) for people with a range of communication disabilities.

AAC can involve low tech and high tech devices that are used to help a client reach their functional communication needs.

EARLY COMMUNICATION & PLAY SKILLS

Each child develops at their own pace, although some may have difficulty acquiring certain skills independently or within the average ranges.

Early language skills refer to the development of preverbal skills (e.g. eye contact, joint attention, imitation), receptive language skills (i.e. understanding gestures and words) and expressive language skills (i.e. using gestures, sounds and words).

These skills are developed through play and with interactions with people and the environment.

Each child develops at their own pace, although some may have difficulty acquiring certain skills independently or within the average ranges.