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SERVICES

Messenger Speech Therapy is a Fun, Therapeutic Space where inclusion & acceptance are Prioritized! 

speech Assessment

  • A combination of formal and informal assessments, parent/caregiver interviews, observations and play-based interactions will be used to determine your child’s speech, language, and/or social-skill needs.

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  • Evaluations include a formal written report indicating your child’s strengths, areas of struggle and our treatment recommendations.

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  • *If your child has recently received an evaluation from their school or another provider an evaluation may not be necessary.

Speech Therapy

  • Speech therapy services are provided for toddlers & school-aged children aged 1-15 years.

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  • Sessions are designed to help every child achieve his or her full potential and communicate more effectively in the places he or she lives, learns, and plays.

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  • Since family members and teachers are important pieces in the therapeutic process, sessions also target parent/teacher education.​

Expertise Areas

  • Childhood Apraxia of Speech​

  • Early Intervention (Birth to Three years)

  • Speech Sound Disorders

  • Phonological Disorders

  • Natural Language Acquisition

  • Augmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC)

  • Neurodiversity-affirming & non-behavioral based services to build communication skills in autistic children

  • Receptive/Expressive Language Disorders

  • Phonological Awareness skills using the Integrated Phonological Awareness program​

Natural Language Acquisition

  • Does your child communicate using delayed echolalia (scripting)?

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  • Do they repeat questions, books, and movies, but have a hard time generating spontaneous language?

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  • Your child might be a gestalt language processor. Gestalt language processors process language in chunks rather than one word at a time.

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  • The Natural Language Acquisition approach is used to guide us in helping a child move from echolalia to self-generated (original, flexible) language.

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PROMPT

  • PROMPTS for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets is a tactile-kinesthetic (touch and feel) approach where an SLP places his/her hands on the client’s face to guide his/her jaw, lips, and tongue to move correctly to form words.

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  • This approach can be used with all speech sound disorders including articulation, apraxia of speech, and dysarthria.  

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DTTC

  • Dynamic Tactile & Temporal Cueing (DTTC) is a treatment approach designed for children with childhood apraxia of speech. It is designed to improve the brain’s ability to plan and program motor movements for speech.

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  • Cues are provided and then faded to promote independence. The child is provided with frequent practice of target words, with focus on movement between sounds.

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ChildhooD Apraxia of Speech

  • A thorough evaluation will be completed to diagnose childhood apraxia of speech (depending on the child's ability to participate).

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  • A variety of approaches will be utilized to treat Childhood Apraxia of Speech:

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  • PROMPT

  • DTTC

  • Kaufman successive approximations 

  • Bjorem Speech Sound Cues

  • Multi-sensory cues

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AAC

  • Programming a wide variety of devices for individuals needs including direct selection (direct touch and eye gaze) and indirect selection (eye gaze)

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  • Utilizing low tech, mid tech, and high tech AAC systems

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  • Writing and obtaining approvals for insurance funded speech generating devices (SGD)

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  • Competency with the following SGD/softwares: The Prentke Romich Company (PRC), Tobii Dynavox, and iPad based communications softwares (TouchChat, LAMP-Words For Life, & Proloquo2Go)

Speech Sound Disorders

  • Speech sound disorders often involve substitutions of one sound for another (/w/ for /r/ as in "wabbit" for "rabbit") or sound distortions, such a frontal or lateral lisp. Most children can say almost all sounds correctly by the age of 5.

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  • Children with phonological disorders exhibit consistent patterns of sound substitutions or omissions. The more phonological patterns a child exhibits the more difficult they are to understand.

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