Welcome to Paloma
Welcome to Paloma
Therapy is available in English for children experiencing difficulty in any of the following areas
An articulation disorder involves problems making sounds. Sounds can be substituted, left off, added or changed. These errors may make it hard for people to understand the child. Articulation therapy focuses on the motor aspects of speech production and the clarity of speech sound production. Articulation therapy involves behavioral techniques, focused on teaching children new sounds in place of error-sounds or omitted sounds, one at a time, and then gradually introducing them (new sounds that is) into longer and longer utterances, and eventually into normal conversational speech.
With a phonological process disorder, the child shows patterns of sound errors. This could mean he is substituting those sounds that are made in the back of the mouth like “k” and “g” for sounds made in the front of the mouth like “l” and “t” (e.g., saying “tat” for “cat”) or the other way around.
Apraxia of speech, also known as verbal apraxia or dyspraxia, is a speech disorder in which a child has trouble saying what he or she wants to say correctly and consistently. It is a motor speech disorder which a child presents with difficulty coordinating the oral muscles used for speech. It is not due to weakness or paralysis of the speech muscles, but rather voluntary coordination. The severity of apraxia of speech can range from mild to severe.
A language disorder can be an expressive or receptive language disorder, or a combination of expressive and receptive. We can speak of an expressive language disorder when a child shows great difficulty with expressing himself verbally. He may have limited vocabulary usage, difficulty with producing longer sentences or phrases, and trouble retrieving words so that it often seems like he is searching for words. He may also demonstrate difficulties using proper syntax, semantics, or morphology. We can speak of a receptive language disorder when a child has got difficulties in attending to, processing, comprehending, retaining, or integrating spoken language. A child with a receptive language disorder shows difficulties with following directions, answering questions, or attending to spoken language.
Pre-literacy, or phonemics, awareness is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. It involves blending, segmenting and deleting sounds.
The ability to hear, identify and manipulate the individual sounds in words is a “pre-reading” skill that provides children with the ability to become aware that sounds are actually building blocks that can be used to construct words. This therapy encourages children to become aware of the many sounds in their language.
A child with an auditory processing disorder presents with difficulty in processing the information they hear in the same way as others because their ears and brain don’t fully coordinate. Something adversely affects the way the brain recognizes and interprets sounds, most notably the sounds composing speech. Children with APD often do not recognize subtle differences between sounds in words, even when the sounds are loud and clear enough to be heard.
An executive function disorder describes difficulties associated with setting goals, carrying out organized steps and modifying a plan to complete a task successfully. These skills are useful for learning from experiences in the past and applying those skills in new experiences. Problems with attention, memory, impulse control, organization, planning, and hierarchical thinking are all part of the executive functions.
Early intervention. Research has shown that the time between birth and 36 months is an extremely critical period of development. These months offer a window of opportunity that will not be available later on in life. Early intervention allows us to both identify and treat very young children in an effort to minimize any potential speech and language developmental issues.
A tongue thrust is seen when a person fails to acquire an adult swallow pattern. A delay or interruption in the oral maturational process is present.Tongue thrust therapy includes various exercises for the lips, tongue, cheeks and jaw. The main purpose of these exercises is to change an incorrect or immature swallow to an correct adult pattern.This adult swallow pattern is beneficial to the positioning of teeth and also helps to correct articulation of speech sounds.