Language Disorders

Many parents bring their young children in when they are not yet meeting their language milestones. Late talkers, as they are known, are kids who are not saying first words on time or may have a limited number of words that they use. Their younger siblings and peers may be surpassing their language development. They may have difficulty with receptive language as well as expressive language, or it may be limited to one area.

Kids who are not able to produce motor sequencing to generate speech into words easily, can’t imitate easily and typically have adequate receptive language (they understand everything) are often identified with apraxia. Apraxia may be present on any level of sequencing; sounds, words, sentences, and interfere with reading and writing when they are school-aged. However, sometimes, there are other things going on, so they must be ruled out, such as low tone.

Sometimes kids have more than one thing going on, such as Autism, or a tongue tie, so it is important to use a variety of techniques. Treatment techniques may include PROMPT, picture communication system (PECS) and a variety of language facilitation strategies that may be utilized.

Older kids and adults may have other language impairments that may be due to APD, ASD and neurological conditions such as stroke or traumatic brain injury. Brain-based programs such as Fast ForWord® or Interactive Metronome® may be used in addition to traditional techniques.