How Can Speech Therapy Help Special Needs Children?
Speech therapy may be a service that you’ve wondered about for your child. There’s a lot that speech therapy can do to help your child to grow and to learn more about producing and comprehending spoken language.
Speech Therapy Helps with Aphasia and Apraxia
Pediatric Care Arlington, VA: Speech Therapy
Aphasia, or difficulty expressing language, and apraxia, difficulty pronouncing spoken words, are two big problems that special needs children often face. These can be caused by brain injuries or birth defects and speech therapy can help each problem to a certain extent. Muscle strengthening exercises for the mouth and tongue can sometimes help with pronunciation difficulties and there are other techniques that can help with aphasia.
It Also Helps with Speech Delays
Children who have speech delays can also experience those delays for a variety of reasons. Speech therapy offers a safe, comfortable space in which your child can learn other ways to communicate, such as through sign language. Encouraging activities and play therapy can also be a part of the process. Practicing words together can be a fun game that your child may start to want to engage in more often.
It Can Help with Stuttering
Stuttering can be an emotional difficulty, but sometimes it can have other causes. Speech therapy for stuttering often involves helping your child to learn to slow down while speaking and to moderate the flow of words. It might also be possible to try a variety of other exercises to help to move the mouth and tongue in different ways while speaking, which can also be helpful. Even after successful speech therapy, though, emotional triggers may sometimes cause the stuttering to recur.
Speech Therapy Can Also Help with Swallowing Difficulties
If your child is having difficulty swallowing, speech therapy may be able to help. Part of speech therapy involves using exercises to make the mouth stronger, to help your child to chew better, and helping her tongue to move in the right ways. All of these solutions can help to improve your child’s ability to swallow properly. There may be other possible answers that a speech therapist can spot while working with your child, too.
Home care for children can help you to get the speech therapy services that your child needs. These services can be life changing for your family and for the well-being of your child. Whether your child needs only a little bit of assistance or longer stretches of speech therapy, this service can be immensely beneficial.