Speech Compass provides Speech, Language, Play, and Feeding Therapy for children and their families in West Volusia County. Individual therapy and parent coaching are provided in the clinic, in your home, at your child’s daycare/school, or online via our secure teletherapy platform. The teletherapy platform is available to any families residing in the state of Florida. We encourage family members to actively participate in our sessions to increase generalization and carry-over of skills learned in therapy. We specialize in working with children to address communication challenges in the following areas:
Speech therapy focuses on your child’s pronunciation of words by targeting their specific speech sound errors, phonological processes (speech pattern errors) and/or motor planning.
Language therapy focuses on receptive language, expressive language and pragmatics (social skills). Research has shown that delays in language development may impact academic success in the future. Receptive language involves a child’s ability to understand and process what is being said. Receptive language delay or disorder may impact a child’s ability to follow directions, attend to what is being said and/or impacts their vocabulary. Expressive language is a child’s ability to express their wants/needs. A child with an expressive language delay/disorder may have difficulty forming accurate sentences, word finding difficulties and vocabulary. A deficit in the area of pragmatics may impact a child’s ability to engage in appropriate conversations, take turns during play or conversation, and use words for a variety of functions (request, reject, label objects, request assistance, answer questions, or gain attention appropriately).
Play is a major prerequisite skill to speech and language development. Play therapy will focus on your child’s independent play as well as their interactions with others. Some children benefit from explicit modeling of the different types of play including functional play (using objects appropriately), relational play (using two objects together), self-directed play (using objects towards self), pretend play, and symbolic play (using one object during play to represent or symbolize another object).
Feeding therapy addresses sensory processing, motor planning, picking eating and medical history.
*Services typically begin with a comprehensive evaluation. Our evaluations consist of parent input, therapist observation, standardized assessment and unstructured interaction between the therapist and child. The evaluation process is completed in order for the therapist to have an accurate account of the child’s areas of strengths and areas that may be challenging. The results of the evaluation and parent preference will determine appropriate treatment goals on the child’s plan of care.
