When we talk about speech therapy, people often look at us with a sweet, smiling face and say things like, “Oh, it is so wonderful that you help kids say their ‘r’ and ‘s’ sounds!” Don’t get us wrong, we can definitely help your child stop calling that furry animal with long ears a “wabbit”. But did you know that speech-language pathologists work with school-age children in many other areas outside of resolving errors with speech sounds?
Here are four examples of the areas we can provide help to school-age children at TheraCare:
1 – Executive Function Skills
Executive function and self-regulation skills are crucial to a person’s ability to get things done in their daily life. You may notice that your child has difficulties planning for upcoming tests, making decisions regarding the best ways to schedule their time, or remaining focused on a conversation at the dinner table. Executive function skills help us all plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks. If your child is having difficulty with these things, then schoolwork and social interactions may be negatively impacted.
2 – Auditory Processing Disorder
Have you noticed that your child has difficulty understanding instructions in noisy environments or continues to have difficulty with reading or spelling even given specific instruction? Sometimes children are able to hear words being said, but their brains have a hard time processing what they are hearing. Speech-Language Pathologists can help students discriminate, recognize, and comprehend auditory information to help them achieve greater success in school.
3 – Language Skills
Language skills are how we convey our thoughts and ideas to others. Adequate language skills are fundamental to academic and social success. This includes both receptive language (how we understand language) and expressive language (how we get our thoughts across). Language is such a broad area, but here are a few examples of the types of things we might work on with children of various ages:
- Following directions (from simple, one-step directions, to multi-step, complex directions)
- Grammar (subject-verb agreement, proper verb tense, grammatically-correct sentences, etc.)
- Vocabulary (demonstrating understanding and using grade-level vocabulary)
- Asking and understanding wh- questions
- Writing a complete, grammatically-correct narrative
4 – Spelling, Reading, and Writing Skills
Is your child struggling with spelling words correctly? Maybe reading and writing has been a consistent challenge over the years? We can help with that! We focus on integrating all the functional elements necessary to help your child develop effective reading and writing skills. At TheraCare, we utilize a specific approarch that is proven to help improve skills for individuals with various levels of needs, including individuals with Dyslexia. We can help your child discover that learning these skills is fun while using our systematic, multi-sensory approach.
Whether it’s by saying that tricky /r/ sound, working on auditory discrimination skills, or helping your child succeed with reading and writing, the Speech-Language Pathologists at TheraCare would love to help your child communicate effectively and succeed in school! It is never too late to get help for your school-age child.
Check out our summer programs at www.theracareozarks.com/summer-programs for more information about upcoming learning opportunities or call us at (417) 890-4656.
We are excited to partner with you to set your child up for success!
