Speech Pathology

We help your child acquire excellent language and literacy skills that reflects their intellectual potential.

Phonological processes are a natural part of developing speech. Sometimes your child may have a hard time producing sounds correctly, reading words and passages, or writing sentences with correct punctuation and grammar.

Our expert team of Speech Pathologists can help people who have difficulties with speaking, listening, understanding, language, reading, writing, swallowing and social skills.

We also work with people whose speech is affected by emotional trauma, learning disabilities and physical impairments.

Here is how we can help in the following areas:

Areas of Speech Pathology

Voice and Vocal habits

Voice issues can make it challenging for some people to communicate. If your voice is hoarse, husky, or too loud or soft, it may be difficult for you to be fully understood by others. Here are some ways we can help:

Exercises to improve the quality of your voice
Retraining on how to use the voice effectively

Stuttering

Stuttering is when someone repeats or gets stuck on certain words or sounds. Stuttering can be made worse by anxiety and emotions. Here are some ways we can help:

Help smooth speech with techniques for joining words together
Develop strategies to make you feel less anxious in situations where you are more likely to stutter

Speech Sounds

Coordinating all the elements involved in making a sound including your tongue and lips can be challenging for some people.

An example of a difficulty with speech sounds is a lisp, where a person says /s/ and /z/ sounds more like “th”. Here are some ways we can help:

Steps and techniques to create sounds
Practice difficult sounds and how to join sounds together to create words

Mealtimes & swallowing

Would you believe that about 1 in 5 Australians have difficulty swallowing? This can include problems with sucking, drinking, chewing, eating and taking medicine.

Speech therapists can help people to improve chewing and swallow more safely, reducing the risk of choking. Here are some ways we can help:

Provide exercises to help strengthen your mouth, tongue and throat muscles
Helping you choose easy to swallow foods

Communications aids

Communication aids offer practical or technical assistance with communicating such as signing, gestures, picture charts and electronic devices. Here are some ways we can help:

They can find the right aid for you and teach you how to use it
Speech therapists know about all the latest devices and what they do

Language and literacy

Being able to express your ideas, feelings and needs is an important aspect of communication. Speech therapists help people improve their communication in daily life. Here are some ways we can help:

They’ll help you know how to choose the right word at the right time
They can assist with reading and writing skills

Areas of Speech Pathology

Speech

Articulation: Ability to produce sounds correctly by movement of the tongue and mouth. If your child is difficult to understand by either familiar or unfamiliar listeners, they may require therapy.

Phonology: How sounds are used in language. Phonological processes occur as a child is learning to put sounds together to make words. Your child may use the ‘d’ sound instead of using the ‘t’ sound. Phonological processes can be a natural part of developing speech, however if some processes are not remediated by a certain age, therapy may be required.

Literacy

The ability to read, write and spell. Language skills and comprehension may have an impact on literacy development.

Language

Receptive: to understand written and oral language, comprehension, following instructions and understanding questions.

Expressive: to communicate information, using grammar, words, sentences and gestures. Expressive language is the ability to describe objects in an environment, events or situations.

Fluency

Stuttering: The repetition of sounds or words, getting stuck on words or dragging out the sounds in words. Facial twitches or movements may also be a form of stuttering.