Services for Children
Empowering children to communicate with confidence through fun, personalized speech therapy.
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Children with autism have difficulty with social communication, restricted and repetitive behaviours and sensory difficulties. At All Avenues, we provide family-centered care by working with parents and caregivers to assess overall communcaiton and develop an individualized intervention plan based on the family’s goals. We provide intervention in the areas of speech, language, social skills, play skills, and teach other types of communication (pictures, assistive technology, etc.).
Our therapy services help improve:
- Social communication and relationship building
- Sensory difficulties
- Restricted and repetitive behaviours
- Self-regulation skills
Developemental Disabilities in Children
Children with developmental disability such as Down Syndrome, intellectual Disabilities, or Global Developmental Delay often also have speech and language difficulties. They may have difficulty understanding language, expressing themselves (small vocabulary, short sentences), o rmay be difficult to understand due to speech production difficulties. Therapists at All Avenues will work with your child to support their speech and language needs by improving speech clarity, increasing your child’s vocabulary size, helping your child speak in longer sentences, and more! Our experienced clinicians will use your child’s strengths to support their areas of development.
Our therapy services help improve:
- Improving speech clarity
- Your child speak in longer sentences
- Increasing your child's vocabulary size
- Understanding language
Language delays in Children
A child may have a language delay if he or she is not meeting language milestones for their age or has difficulties understanding words and/or expressing themselves. Our speech-language pathologists work with children who have language delays by proving a thorough assessment and developing an intervention plan including direct therapy and parent training to continue language intervention at home. Early intervention is important to support your child’s language development.
Our therapy services help improve:
- Strategies for comprehending and practiving spoken language
- Strategies to encourage appropriate communicative behaviour
Learning Disabilities in Children
Children with language-based learning difficulties often have trouble with reading and writing. Children may have greater difficulties learning language-based skills in the classroom and require additional assistance with writing, reading, decoding, and cognition. Our clinicians provide a detailed assessment to best determine which areas of learning require specialized attention. We then develop a comprehensive and highly individualized treatment consisting of skill building exercises and strategies to support the language learning needs of your child.
Our therapy services help improve:
- Reading
- Decoding
- Writing
- Cognition
Literacy (Reading and Writing) Difficulties for Children
Preschoolers may have difficulty with early-literacy skills including letter knowledge, narrative skills and phonological awareness skills (knowing and manipulating sounds in words). These skills are important for children to develop reading and writing skills throughout critical years or development. Early intervention is crucial for children whose literacy skills are lower than expected for their age.
Reading and writing difficulties can affect a school-age child’s academic achievement and confidence. Children with reading and writing difficulties need one-on-one attention to support their literacy skills. Our speech-language pathologists will do a comprehensive reading and writing assessment and create a treatment plan to support your child’s needs. Our therapists also collaborate with teachers and school staff to help you child succeed academically.
Our therapy services help improve:
- Letter knowledge
- Phonological awareness skills
- Narrative skills
- Reading and writing
Play Skills and Communication in Children
As children learn language through play, it is important for children to develop their play skills. Children also develop social skills when they play with peers and adults. Pretend play (e.g., pretending to feed a doll or a teddy bear, pretending to cook at a toy kitchen, etc.) is important as children are discovering creativity and learning important language and social skills for communication. Our trained clinicians will work with your child to help improve play and communication skills as well as train parents to continue facilitating play skills at home.
Our therapy services help improve:
- Pretend play
- Language and social skills
Pragmatic Language in Children
Pragmatic language difficulties refer to difficulties with social communication including engaging and maintaining social interacgtions, telling stories, and understanding jokes, humour, and sarcasm. Our speech-language pathologists work with children of all ages on those important social skills by practicing real-life social situations in a safe learning environment and by giving families strategies to continue supporting social skills at home.
Our therapy services help improve:
- Engaging and maintaining social interactions
- Understanding jokes, humour and sarcasm
- Telling stories
- Adapting language to different people and contexts
Preschool Stuttering
Children who stutter may have repetitions of sounds (m-m-m-my) or words (my, my, my) prolongations (mmmy), or blocks (trying to say a sound but no sounds come out). Everyone’s speech has dysfluencies, however, people who stutter have more frequent dysfluencies in their speech. This may also be accompanied by secondary behaviours such as tension in the face or involuntary head or body movements.
Stuttering may affect a child’s confidence and willingness to participate in social interactions with others. Early intervention is important for better speech outcomes. Our therapists will work with you child using strategies tailored to your child and family’s needs. Some ways to work on stuttering include parent training programs and teaching the child strategies to speak more fluently.
Our therapy services help improve:
- Repetitions of sounds or words
- Consistent blocks in speech
- Prolongations in speech
- Secondary behaviours
Speech Delays/Pronunciation Difficulties in Children
A speech delay involves difficulties pronouncing certain sounds when speaking. This may affect a child’s ability to be understood. Pronunciation difficulties are common when a child first learns how to speak. However, when articulation difficulties continue past the age when most children can correctly produce that sounds, the child may need to see a speech-language pathologist to help them learn and pronounce the sounds. Common pronunciation difficulties are:
• Substitutions: changing one sound to another sound (e.g., “run” produced as “wun”)
• Ommisions: missing a sound (e.g., “hat” produced as “ha”
• Distortions: producing a modified sound (e.g., /s/ produced with tongue too far forward or between the teeth, “sing” produced as “thing”)
• Additions: adding a sound within a word (e.g., “blue” produced as “buhlue”)
Our skilled speech-language pathologists will provide a thorough assessment and create a personalized treatement plan for your child to address their speech difficulties. Our therapists will work regularly with your child to teach them how to pronounce certain sounds and practice in syllables, words, phrases, and sentences until your child is able to pronounce the target sounds in everyday conversation.
Our therapy services help improve:
- Substitutions
- Distortions
- Omissions
- Additions