Frequently Asked Questions: This page contains answers to common questions of students and parents.
What does a Speech and Language Pathologist do?
Communication is our most human characteristic. It is essential to learning, working, and enjoying family life and friendships. A speech and language pathologist is a communication specialist who works with children, parents and staff in a collaborative fashion to assess, diagnosis, and provide therapy for children with various communication disorders. In the school setting, a speech and language pathologist will concentrate on areas of speech and language that affect educational progress. A speech disorder refers to a problem with the actual production of sounds, whereas a language disorder refers to a difficulty understanding or putting words together to communicate ideas. Speech disorders could include difficulty articulating specific sounds, the sequencing of sounds, syllables and words, or stuttering. Language disorders could include weakness in listening comprehension, acquiring or retrieving vocabulary, sentence construction or expansion, organization of language or the inability to use language in a socially appropriate way. Language disorders can be either receptive or expressive. Receptive disorders refer to difficulties understanding or processing language. Expressive disorders refer to difficulties with verbal and written expressionBack to Top
What Speech and Language Services are available at the Dennett School?
Language Assessment and Therapy: Students may receive a language assessment and therapy if they are experiencing delay and or difficulty with vocabulary development, syntax and grammar, auditory comprehension and processing deficits, and/or pragmatic language disorders. Articulation Evaluation and Therapy: Children who have difficulty producing speech sounds may be referred for an evaluation and therapy. Articulation disorders include difficulties producing sounds in syllables or saying words incorrectly to the point that other people can't understand what's being said. Fluency Evaluation and Therapy: Children may be referred for evaluation and therapy for stuttering, a disorder of speech fluency that interrupts the forward flow of speech. All individuals are disfluent at times, but what differentiates the person who stutters from someone with normal speech disfluencies is the kind and amount of the disfluencies. Remediation Speech-language therapy involves having a speech and language pathologist work with a child on a one-to-one basis or in a small group to overcome difficulties involved with a specific disorder. Speech and language pathologists use a variety of therapeutic strategies including: � Language intervention activities. These exercises involve a speech and language pathologist interacting with a child by playing and talking with him/her. The therapist may use pictures, books, objects, game type activities or ongoing events to stimulate language development. The therapist may also model correct pronunciation and use repetition exercises to build speech and language skills. � Articulation therapy. Articulation, or sound production, exercises involve having the therapist model correct sounds and syllables for a child, often during play activities. The level of play is age appropriate and related to the child's specific needs. Articulation therapy involves physically showing a child how to make certain sounds, such as the "r" sound. A speech and language pathologist may demonstrate how a child should move his tongue to produce specific sounds. � Fluency therapy. The speech and language pathologist works with disfluent students to help them learn various relaxation techniques and strategies for decreasing disfluencies and tension while communicating in various settings. Parents and teachers may also be provided with information and suggestions to improve their understanding and responses to a student�s disfluency.Back to Top