Do you have a child who learns in different way? Your family and friends find it’s hard to understand you? We are here for you to listen and support.

Click here for more information about Social Skills Group.

• Speech Therapy Session (1 hour)
  • Therapist: $150*
  • Senior Therapist: $170*

•  Speech Therapy Assessment (1 hour)
  
  • Therapist: $180
  • Senior Therapist: $220

• Speech Therapy Report
  
  • Therapist: $180
  • Senior Therapist: $200

• For Speech Therapy Session, we offer 10% discount when paying for a block of 10 weekly sessions in advance

For EXPRESS REPORTS (less than 2 weeks), a charge of $100 is applicable.

Please complete this Child Questionnaire prior to booking an appointment with us. Our hotline is 6100 9235. We are open daily from Monday to Saturday.

Children start practicing their speech sounds by babbling when they are very young and this process will continue for the next few years of their lives! It is quite normal for children’s speech intelligibility to be limited when they are very young but as they grow older their intelligibility increases even if sometimes their sounds are not all correct. In fact, it is expected that children make some speech errors at different stages of their development. These errors are called ‘age appropriate’ and should resolve as they get to practice more of their language and speech sounds.

The following table gives a general idea of what sounds and errors to expect at different ages. If your child’s speech is not following the pattern you see in this table, please contact your doctor and/ or a Speech and Language Therapist.

* some of these sounds might take a couple more years to develop (up until a child is 7.5 yrs). However, a speech assessment is recommended at the ages discussed in the table to rule out any other difficulties and to determine if intervention is beneficial.

You can help your children by developing their awareness of sounds through listening games. Here are some ideas for games and strategies you can use at home:

Reduce distractions where possible: Keep environmental noises down

Draw the child’s attention to noises in the environment and comment on what they are, e.g. water running, aeroplane overhead, fire engine.

Encourage the recognition and use of animal noises.

Encourage the recognition of rhyme and rhythm by saying nursery rhymes. Give the child the opportunity to finish the lines of a familiar rhyme. Action rhymes are particularly good where you have to do something to the words, e.g. incey wincey spider and twinkle twinkle.

Further encourage rhythmic skills by clapping out words and phrases according to the syllables, e.g. I want bu-bbles.

Give certain toys a particular sound, e.g. a ball says ‘b-b-b’ as you bounce it and a train goes ‘ch-ch-ch.’

Encourage the child to look at you so you know they are listening and they can see the shape of your mouth when you say the sound.

If the child pronounces a word wrong, praise what they have said and then remodel it, e.g. “Yes, you are right it is a dog.”

Emphasis the target sound of the word you are modeling, e.g. ssssand.

Take every opportunity during the day to use words with the target sound, e.g. “here are your socks; teddy is sitting on the seat.”

Children with receptive language problem have difficulties in understanding spoken, and sometimes written, language. The following checklist may help you to get an idea if your child has a receptive language problem:

• Difficulty understanding and following directions or instructions.
• Becomes overwhelmed when given 2 or multi step directions.
• Often doesn’t understand longer more complex sentences, thus becomes confused easily.
• Struggles with figurative versus literal language and will usually need explanations.
• Regularly requires clarification and to have the instructions/directions repeated. Often uses the term ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I forget’.

The child may be able to read but when questioned about the passage just read, he/she has limited understanding.

Expressive language problem is characterized by the child having problem in expressing him/herself using speech. The child understands language better than she is able to communicate. The problem can be acquired (such as in the case of brain trauma) or developmental, which is more commonly seen in children.

Children with expressive language problem often do not talk much or often, although they generally understand language addressed to them. For example, a 2-year-old may be able to follow 2-step commands, but he/she cannot name body parts.

A 4-year-old may understand stories read to him/her, but he/she may not be able to describe the story even in a simple narrative. Imaginative play and social uses of language (i.e. manners, conversation) may also be impaired by expressive language limitations, causing difficulty in playing with peers.

These are children who may have a lot to say, but are unable to retrieve the words they need. Some children may have no problem in simple expression, but have difficulties retrieving and organizing words and sentences when expressing more complicated thoughts and ideas. This may occur when they are trying to describe, define, or explain information or retell an event or activity.

Pragmatics is the function of language, social aspects like turn taking, eye contact, distance etc. It is choosing the right word combinations for the given situation, e.g. ‘Is anyone sitting here?’ or ‘Would you mind if I sit here?’ when asking permission to sit on an empty seat in a restaurant can be changed to ‘May I sit here, please?’ if the first two requests do not produce the desired result.

Syntax is the order and combination of words to form sentences, and the relationships among the elements within a sentence. Grammatical rules, e.g., ‘I like this new outfit’ rather than ‘I like new outfit this’ or ‘I likes this new outfit’.

Semantics is the content, meaning of language, e.g., ‘bright’ can refer to illuminating light or talented and smart person.