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Speech Therapy at City Hospital

What do speech pathologists evaluate?
Evaluations may include assessment of skills in the following areas:

• Aphasia due to a stroke or neurological impairment
  
• Articulation and intelligibility
  
• Assistive & augmentative communication
  
• Auditory processing: interpreting information you hear
  
• Cognition/play
  
• Dysphagia/ difficulty swallowing
  
• Expressive language: communicating through words, gestures and/or alternative methods
  
• Feeding difficulties: texture defensiveness and sensitivity. Extreme food selectivity
  
• Fluency/stuttering
  
• Pragmatic language/social skills
  
• Receptive language: comprehending and understanding
  
• Swallowing
  
• Voice
  

Treatment
Treatment may be recommended based on evaluation results from specialized testing and clinical judgement. Treatment goals will be achieved using the most appropriate intervention strategy and/or a combination of strategies. Treatment approaches may include:

• Traditional speech and language treatment
  
• Structured play
  
• Phonological approach
  
• Oral motor for feeding development
  
• Sensory integration for functional feeding
  
• Collaboration with home and community therapists
  
• Caregiver education and training
  

When to refer for developmental speech and language?
Your child should be referred for speech/language therapy services if he/she exhibits any of the following:

• Multiple errors in speech and is not understood by age 3.
  
• Inconsistent errors, unintelligible speech, extremely limited numbers of sounds.
  
• Not making eye contact and turn taking with actions or vocalizations by 6 months of age, or not recognizing objects or pictures by age 2.
  
• Non-verbal or speaking only in single words at 2.5 years of age; or if unable to produce complete, complex sentences by age 4.
  
• Trouble recalling and using new information because of problems with language, attention and memory.
  
• Unable to interact with others at an age-appropriate level, such as following rules of conversation. Voice does not sound right. For example, hoarse, raspy, breathy or if the child likes to scream or talk loudly.
  
• Stuttering.
  
• Cannot manage the transition to table foods.

Dysphagia & Modified Barium Swallow Studies

• For individuals experiencing difficulty with eating and those who have suspected aspiration (food/liquid going into lungs instead of stomach), a modified barium swallow study may be completed to facilitate diagnosis and treatment of swallowing problems.
  
• A modified barium swallow study is a video x-ray taken while the individual is eating and/or drinking. It is used to assess the safety of the swallow and to determine what foods and liquids would be the safest for the individual to swallow.
  
• These studies are medically supervised and performed by a team that includes a speech language pathologist and radiology technicians.
  

Patients/ physician offices must contact Community Wide Scheduling for modified barium swallow study appointments at: (304) 264-1297.

Our Speech Therapy Department is headed by Lindsey Holmes, M.S. CCC-SLP.