Speech Therapy
Pediatric speech and language therapy is provided for infants and children up to age 5 in order to assess and treat speech, language, and communication skills. A Speech-Language Pathologist may also see children with feeding difficulties to address strategies and methods to improve feeding, swallowing, and mealtime behaviors.
A child may be delayed in reaching major speech and language milestones, may have difficulty understanding or using language to communicate wants and needs, or may have difficulty with certain sounds. In general, speech and language milestones for infants and children up to age 5 are as follows:
Speech and language general milestones:
- 6 months - may recognize familiar faces
- 6 to 12 months - may babble (e.g., mamama, bababa)
- 12 to 18 months - may point to a picture named in a book
- 18 to 24 months – has approximately 25 - 50 vocabulary words
- 24 to 36 months – may use 3 to 5 word sentences
- 36 to 48 months – may recall parts of a story
In order to facilitate the achievement of these milestones, the following activities should be engaged in to encourage speech and language development:
- Narrate activities, giving your child words for their actions and objects in the environment
- Model sounds and say words for a child to imitate
- Read books with your child to further develop vocabulary
- Help your child complete 1 and 2 step directions (e.g., get you cup and put your cup in the sink)
- Be a cheerleader for communication attempts