At Treehouse, our goal is to provide every child with an individualized experience to best serve his or her unique needs. Your journey begins with a comprehensive evaluation tailored to the concerns of the family, teachers, pediatricians, and/or the child themselves. Through standardized testing, observations, and parent or professional report we assess your child’s level of functioning and their specific areas of need.
SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY SERVICES
SPEECH
Articulation and Phonology
As children grow and develop, they are learning to make new sounds. Just like learning any new skill, there are common errors that occur. A speech sound disorder occurs when these mistakes or patterns continue past the age when the sounds should be made correctly. An articulation disorder is incorrectly making a sound while a phonological disorder is when errors occur with sound patterns.
Motor Speech
Speech production involves thinking of what you want to say and coordinating your breathing with the movement of the mouth. In some cases, the brain may have problems planning the movement of the jaw, lips, and tongue to produce speech. The child may know what he or she wants to say but has difficulty coordinating the movement necessary to say those words. This is called Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS). In other cases, there is weakness in the muscles of the mouth, face, and respiratory system which is called dysarthria.
Fluency
Fluency is the rhythm of our speech. Disfluencies are the interruption in our rhythm. Everyone exhibits disfluencies in his or her speech. There is a range of disfluencies including more typical, e.g. hesitations, fillers (like, um) and less typical, e.g., blocks, sound repetition. When these disfluencies impact our ability to effectively communicate they are considered a disorder. Fluency disorders include stuttering and cluttering.
Orofacial Myology
Orofacial myology is the study and treatment of oral and facial muscles as they relate to speech, dentition, chewing/bolus collection, swallowing, and airway. Orofacial myofunctional disorders (OMDs) are defined by abnormalities of the muscles and the functions of the face and mouth that negatively impact normal growth, development, and/or function. These abnormal patterns can impact speech, breathing, swallowing, chewing, sleeping, dentition and more.
LANGUAGE
Expressive and Receptive Language
We use language to communicate with the world around us by expressing our thoughts and emotions, making sense of complex and abstract ideas, fulfilling our wants and needs, as well as establishing rules and maintaining our culture. Expressive language is our use of language including speaking and writing. Receptive language is our comprehension of what we hear or read.
Pragmatic Language
Pragmatic language is our social use of language. Pragmatic language involves three major communication skills: using language for different purposes, changing language given your listener or situation, and following rules for conversation and storytelling. This includes not only what we say but how we say it as well as our gestures and expressions.
Executive Function
In order to navigate through the day, children and adults use their executive function skills. Executive function is a set of mental processes that help connect previous experience with the present action. People use it to perform activities such as planning, organizing, attending to new information, remembering details, and managing time and space. As a child develops, there are different expectations for the acquisition and use of these skills at home and in the classroom.
FEEDING & SWALLOWING
Feeding is the act of gathering food in order to suck, chew, or swallow it. When children begin to eat, they learn to use their jaw, lips, and tongue. They learn to close their lips to clear the spoon or fork, sip from a straw or cup, and move their jaw and tongue to chew. Once the food is in their mouth the act of swallowing beings. If there is difficulty or interruption with any of these skills a disorder can occur. These include but are not limited to food falling out of mouth, aversion to tastes, textures, or temperatures, gagging, choking, coughing, gurgly voice, and/or recurrent pneumonia.
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY SERVICES
SENSORY INTEGRATION
Sensory integration is the nervous system’s process of receiving messages from all the senses (touch, sight, sound, taste, smell, movement, and body awareness) and turning them into appropriate motor and behavioral responses. Children with sensory processing issues may fidget constantly, seem uninterested, become overly cautious, or act out making it difficult to learn effectively. Occupational therapy will help pinpoint the sensory input your child needs to maintain the focus and self-regulation needed to get through the day successfully.
EMOTIONAL REGULATION
“Emotion regulation” is a term generally used to describe a person’s ability to effectively manage and respond to an emotional experience. Many children have difficulty with being able to regulate their emotions appropriately both at school and in their homes. Occupational therapy can be used to help identify feelings, regulate emotions, and teach effective coping strategies to kids and their families.
SELF-REGULATION
Self-regulation describes our ability to monitor and manage our energy states, emotions, and behaviors in order to produce positive interactions and learning. It helps us deal with stressors, filter sensory stimulation, and cope with emotions. When children have difficulty regulating their emotions and behavior appropriately at home and school, occupational therapy can help identify and address the root of the issue, as well as teach effective coping strategies to kids and their caregivers.
FINE MOTOR
Fine motor skills are described as the coordination of movement of the small muscles in the hands and wrists. Children and adults use their fine motor skills every single day! This includes dexterity, grasp, object manipulation, strength, and control of hand muscles in order to be successful with daily activities such as opening doors, holding various utensils, turning the pages of a book, and getting dressed in the morning.
GRASPING
Children utilize various grasping patterns throughout their development such as when learning to play with toys, eat food independently, and manipulate various utensils and objects. Oftentimes, they may experience delayed or immature grasping patterns. This may cause them to fall behind their peers, become frustrated, and rely on adults to complete various play, learning, or self-care tasks.
Pre-Writing/HANDWRITING
The small muscles of our hands must be well-developed in order to be successful in writing and drawing tasks. Children who have trouble copying shapes, coloring in the lines, or forming letters and sentences may benefit from occupational therapy intervention. At Treehouse, we utilize the Handwriting Without Tears program and a multisensory approach to make teaching pre-writing and handwriting fun.
SELF-CARE
We rely on our fine motor skills to complete many daily living activities, such as dressing, manipulating clothing fasteners, tying shoes, feeding, bathing, and using the bathroom. Children with difficulty in these areas may have underlying weakness in their hand and wrist muscles that can be addressed to facilitate independence in home, school, and community environments.
GROSS MOTOR
Gross motor skills refer to the larger movements of the arms, legs, trunk, and entire body. This includes crawling, running, jumping, and climbing in a coordinated and safe manner. Gross motor skills start developing almost immediately after babies are born and continue to develop throughout their lives. Kids utilize their gross motor skills to play on playgrounds, play sports, and move around. These skills also lay the foundation for improving higher-level learning skills that require more precision such as writing and reading.
TREATMENTS
Following the comprehensive evaluation, a formal report and feedback session will explain the results and findings. If necessary, an individualized plan will be developed to target your child’s specific needs.
Individual Treatment
Treehouse Pediatric Therapy provides individual, 1:1, treatment in order to meet each child where they are currently functioning. We use both traditional therapy approaches as well as innovative, current treatments to provide the highest quality of care. Parent and/or caregiver involvement is highly encouraged to speed the rate of progress and provide carryover into the home environment.
co-Treatment
When appropriate, a co-treatment session including both a speech therapist and occupational therapist working with your child at the same time, can be extremely beneficial. Utilizing motor and sensory strategies to calm and regulate the body oftentimes allows for more language learning to be initiated and accessed. We begin with individualized and separate evaluations for each service and then if appropriate develop treatment plans to target the child's needs in a collaborative approach. Call and find out if your child is appropriate for co-treatment therapy sessions!
Group Treatment
When applicable and necessary, group treatment is available to target sensory-motor and social language skills. These sessions are often run by both a speech and occupational therapist and will usually run in a 6-8 week series! Children are matched based on age, personality, and therapy goals. Keep a look out for our various group therapy opportunities!
Part of the Team
As your child’s therapist, it is important to us to advocate for their needs and function as a member of their team. At Treehouse, we encourage a multidisciplinary approach and will actively collaborate with other professionals including teachers, doctors, daycare centers, and other therapists. These collaborations often help keep everyone on the same page! We are available for phone calls, team meetings, and school/daycare observations.