Speech Language Therapy

Speech Language Pathology Treatment Services

If you have trouble with your voice, communication, cognition, or swallowing, a speech language pathologist will help you understand your condition and/or improve your abilities. Speech-Language Pathology may greatly improve an individual’s quality of life by providing tools and training for communication, and by ensuring the ability to safely eat and drink — in an effort to prevent life-threatening aspiration pneumonia.

Speech language pathology provides evaluations and treatment for swallowing problems, which include video swallow, speech and voice problems, as well as cognitive dysfunction. The most common conditions or diagnoses that our speech language pathology patients experience include:

• Stroke
• Traumatic brain injury
• Vocal cord nodules
• Post surgery recovery
• Speech delays

Our program provides identification, prevention, relief, and rehabilitation of disorders of speech, voice, swallowing, language, and cognition.

Conditions Treated With Speech Language Pathology

Speech-language pathologists work to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive-communication, and swallowing disorders in children and adults.

• Speech Disorders - when a person has difficulty producing speech sounds correctly or fluently, which can be caused by a variety of factors, including developmental delay, stroke, or other types of brain injury or neurological conditions.
• Voice Disorders - when the pitch, loudness, or quality calls attention to itself rather than to what the speaker is saying. It is also a problem when the speaker experiences pain or discomfort when speaking or singing. There are a variety of causes of a voice problem, which can include paralysis of a vocal fold, misuse of the voice (talking too loudly, improper breath pattern, smoking, etc.), which can lead to edema, vocal nodules, or polyps.
• Swallowing Disorders - feeding and swallowing difficulties, which may follow an illness, surgery, stroke, or injury.
• Language Disorders - when a person has trouble understanding others (receptive language), or sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings (expressive language). Language disorders may be spoken or written and may involve the form (phonology, morphology, syntax), content (semantics), and/or use (pragmatics) of language in functional and socially appropriate ways.
• Communication Disorders - Cognitive-communication disorders include problems organizing thoughts, paying attention, remembering, planning, and/or problem-solving. These disorders usually happen as a result of a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or dementia, although they can be congenital.