SERVICES

Delays and Disorders of Articulation and Phonology

Speech sound disorders are a common occurrence in young children’s development and can be effectively treated using a variety of carefully selected methods, techniques and programs.  Treatment usually follows a hierarchy of learning the ‘new way’ in order to help the child to move from sound to word to sentence level and finally to be able to use the ‘new’ sounds in conversational speech.

When learning to talk young children make a number of typical errors with their speech sounds that gradually correct as their speech and language develops. For example they might:

1. Omit all ending sounds in words (e.g. “bus” becomes “bu_”)

2. Simplify multisyllable words (“tomato” becomes “mato”)

3. Replace sounds made at back of the mouth (/k/ and /g/) with sounds made in the front of the mouth (e.g. “car” becomes “tar”, “goat” becomes “doat”)

4. Have difficulty contrasting long versus short sounds such as replacing the long /s/ with short /d/  (e.g. “sun” becomes “dun”).
   
   

These are examples of just a few processes seen in typically developing speech.  For some children these error patterns do not gradually improve in line with age expectations and we refer to this as  phonological delay.  Some children make unusual speech error patterns that do not usually occur in typical development. This is referred to as phonological disorder. Sometimes children have features of both delay and disorder in their speech development.

Some children have difficulty achieving correct articulatory placement for specific sounds (such as a lisp) and this known as articulation disorder. Sometimes articulation disorders are due to muscle weakness, structural issues, tongue thrust posture etc. but often the cause of an articulation disorder is unknown.

These speech sound disorders can still be effectively treated following diagnosis by selecting the correct approach or combination of methods. Referrals to other professionals, such as an audiologist, ear nose throat (ENT) physician or orthodontist, may be required to ensure that any underlying causes are also addressed.

We can help with:

Receptive difficulties (comprehension/understanding of what others say to us)

•  Developing auditory memory

• Developing joint attention

•  Developing Listening skills (auditory processing)

• Following directions

• Understanding questions and language concepts
  
  

Expressive difficulties (the structure and content of what we say to others)

• Early communicative gestures, sound play and development of babble

• First words and combining words

• Expanding vocabulary

• Using verbs and grammar (Pronounds, word endings, plurals, tense etc) to build sentence length and complexity

• Answering questions effectively

• Holiding a conversation

• Telling stories and re-telling events

• First words and combining words
  
  

Pragmatic difficulties (Social interaction skills)

• Understanding the social aspects of communication such as greeting, getting someone’s attention, making eye contact, turn taking, protesting etc.

• Communication effectively in a social context

Areas of assessment

We offer a full range of assessments for children and teenagers aged from 12 months to 17 years in the areas of:

• Speech (including articulation, phonology and rate)

• Language (including language understanding and language use)

• Literacy (including sound awareness, reading and spelling)

• Play skills (as language and play are closely linked)

• Fluency (for children who are stuttering)

• Social language/pragmatics (interacting and talking with others)

How can we help?
Specialist support coordination is a higher level of support. The focus is on reducing complexity in the participant's support environment and helping the participant to overcome immediate and/or significant barriers in plan implementation. 

Specialist support coordination helps participants: 

• address complex barriers that affect your access to supports

• design a service plan for your support needs, where appropriate.

1. Address complex barriers 

Specialist support coordinators should help overcome complex barriers that affect participant’s ability to access and maintain appropriate supports. We work with participants, their families and carers to:

• identify and understand the barriers impacting the participant’s ability to access, use and maintain their supports

• find and try solutions to address these barriers

• establish a process to overcome these barriers, including prioritising factors that need to be addressed first and what supports need to be in place immediately.

2. Design a service plan for complex support needs, where appropriate 

Sometimes a participant may need a service plan to address significant complexities in their life. 

We work with you, your families and carers to identify a broad network of a supports – funded or other supports – that can help you use your plan. 

We also design a service plan which:

• ensures all services can work effectively and cohesively together to help you to pursue your goals

• establish processes to enable communication, cooperation and collaboration within your network of funded and non-funded supports

• helps you, your family and carers to resolve issues and unexpected situations

• ensures a consistent delivery of service and access to relevant supports in a crisis or unplanned event.

Once a service plan is designed, we can help you and your support network put the service plan into action.