Bellbird Speech Pathology

List of Services

PAEDIATRIC LANGUAGE THERAPY (children aged 4 – 11 years)

Assessment and intervention for children with a range of expressive or receptive language delays/difficulties. Areas covered may include:

- Language structure and sentence formation
- Use and understanding of grammatical markers in oral language
- Ability to combine words
- Following directions
- Understanding language and basic concepts
- Ability to use and comprehend language of various levels of complexity

ADOLESCENT LANGUAGE THERAPY (aged 11 – 18)

- Comprehensive language assessment and intervention tailored to the individual’s needs
- Curriculum-based intervention for adolescents with a range of expressive or receptive language delays/difficulties.
- Language structure and sentence formation
- Use and understanding of grammatical markers in oral language
- Ability to combine words
- Following directions
- Understanding of basic concepts
- Ability to use and comprehend language of various levels of complexity
- Aimed to enhance the ability to engage and follow instructions within the classroom
- Training in the comprehension of abstract or metalinguistic language, which becomes more prevalent within the high school years

ARTICULATION AND PHONOLOGICAL THERAPY

- Assessment and intervention of speech sound disorders, or persistent use of phonological processes which may interfere which speech intelligibility
- Targets chosen based on the individual’s stage of development, their social or school-based requirements, and general participation.

LITERACY AND PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS TRAINING (SCHOOL AGED AND ADOLESCENT)

Development of skills required for reading, sound awareness etc.

- Rhyme awareness
- Letter-sound correlations
- Sound segmentation and blending
- Therapy for individuals with dyslexia or dysgraphia
- Reading comprehension

FLUENCY (STUTTERING THERAPY)

Lidcombe therapy for preschool and school aged children:

A program based around coaching parents to administer therapy for “smooth speech” on a daily basis within the home. This is a highly researched and successful fluency intervention for preschool aged children, which may also be of some benefit to school aged children.

This program is based around providing verbal contingencies to reinforce “smooth talking” as opposed to “bumpy talking”. Parents are taught to deliver therapy outside of the clinic on a daily basis, to assign stuttering severity ratings each day to monitor progress, and attend speech therapy sessions routinely to continue monitoring and coaching.

Smooth speech therapy for adolescents and adults:

A fluency program based on altering the rate, prosody and continuity of one’s speech to enhance control and reduce or eliminate stuttering.

SOCIAL PRAGMATICS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION (PAEDIATRIC)

Assisting children to integrate socially through developing the use of social language and communication, non-verbal behaviours or social play skills with the aim of generalising these within daily life. Areas of focus may include:

- Indirect prompting to encourage child to initiate or respond within a social situation
- Use of social stories
- Encouraging referencing others through eye contact or body orientation
- Expanding children’s use of social language, appropriate responses, or assisting to develop social/play scripts which can be used within a play environment
- Turn taking and joint attention

EARLY LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT (children aged 12 months – 4 years)

Parent training and play intervention to facilitate language development in the early stages of life. Areas covered include education in developing pre-verbal skills such as:

- Joint attention
- Turn taking
- Pretend play
- Preliminary receptive language
- Eye contact

VOICE THERAPY (PAEDIATRIC, ADOLESCENT AND ADULT)

Functional voice therapy:

Perceptual assessment and behavioural therapy for remediation of voice problems caused by hyper function, misuse or poor vocal hygiene (for instance, vocal strain, aphonia (loss of voice), dysphonia (disordered voice quality), or diagnosed nodules.

Intervention through vocal hygiene education, voice behaviour modification, vocal function exercises, altering the focus of resonance or using enhanced breath support.

Vocal hygiene education:

Education in how to preserve the health of one’s larynx and voice production, including teaching the benefits of:

- Hydration
- Abstinence from toxins associated with excessive alcohol, caffeine or illicit drug consumption
- Voice rest
- Volume monitoring

Transgender voice therapy (voice feminisation or masculinisation):

Assisting people to use their voice in a way which reflects their preferred gender identity.

- Initial acoustic and perceptual assessments of voice characteristics and qualities, as well as quality of life rating scale completion to determine the social and personal well-being associated with voice in relation to gender identity.
- Determination of an appropriate pitch for the individual client which better reflects their gender identity, and which will prevent hyperfunction or vocal damage in the voice modification process
- Svend Smith’s Accent Technique for enhancing breath support
- Stemple’s vocal function exercises, to preserve the condition of the vocal muscles during voice modification
- Altered Focus of Resonance (AFR therapy) – altering the focus of resonance to achieve a higher (ie. More perceptually female) resonance, or a lower (ie. More perceptually male)
- Education surrounding voice, intonation, and non-verbal behaviours which influence the degree to which a person presents as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ in a social context

ALTERNATIVE AND AUGMENTATIVE COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUES (AAC) – PAEDIATRIC AND ADOLESCENT

Training in the use of strategies to supplement or enhance verbal communication depending on an individual’s capacity to express themselves. AAC strategies may include:

- Environmental visual supports
- Visual schedules or timetables - Provision of visual supplements to enhance comprehension
- Communication boards or books

Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS)

- Assists pre-verbal or non-verbal children to make communicative exchanges through the use of pictures, symbols or photographs
- Assists the development of spoken language

Speech Generating Devices

Assistance with applying for funding for speech generation devices to provide a technical means of communication for those with limited or no verbal output

Functional Communication Training:

Involves behavioural training with the aim to replace problematic or undesirable communicative behaviours with a more appropriate communication act. This training is based around positive reinforcement and relationship development – highly recommended for children with an Autism Spectrum Diagnosis.

Training in the use of manual signing (Makaton):

Training parents, children or others to use key word sign to accompany oral language. Assists with comprehension, provides the visual input required by certain individuals, and facilitates the development of expressive language.