Speech Therapy
Speech sound disorders (SSDs) can affect how clearly a child is understood at home, school, and in the community. At South Pasadena Speech, we provide targeted speech therapy for children with articulation disorders, phonological disorders, and childhood apraxia of speech (CAS).
What Are Speech Sound Disorders?
Speech sound disorders are difficulties with how a child hears and understands speech sounds, how they move their mouth to produce those sounds, or how those sounds are organized and stored in their sound system. A child may have one of these difficulties or a combination of them.
Articulation Disorders
Articulation disorders involve difficulty producing specific speech sounds clearly (for example /r/, /s/, or /l/). Therapy focuses on helping children learn accurate sound placement and practice in words, phrases, and conversation.
Phonological disorders involve patterns of sound errors, such as leaving off final sounds or substituting one sound for another. Therapy helps children reorganize their sound system so speech becomes clearer and easier to understand.
Phonological Disorders
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (Motor Speech)
Childhood apraxia of speech is a motor planning speech disorder where the brain has trouble planning the movements for speech. Therapy is intensive, repetitive, and focuses on building accurate movement patterns for sounds and words.
Techniques & Treatment Strategies
For articulation and phonological disorders, a variety of techniques and intervention strategies may be utilized such as traditional motor based articulation therapy, contrast therapies, cycles approach and complexity approach to help children produce and use sounds more accurately.
For childhood apraxia of speech, therapy may include DTTC (Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing), visual and tactile cues, and sometimes sensory and oral-motor supports to help children plan and sequence speech movements.
All techniques are tailored to each child’s age, needs, and interests.
Our Approach
1. Comprehensive Assessment
2. Ongoing Treatment
Ongoing treatment typically takes place in weekly sessions that are designed to be both engaging and efficient for your child. We regularly adjust goals, targets, and therapy strategies based on your child’s progress so treatment stays responsive and effective over time. Parent involvement and home practice are a key part of our approach, helping new skills carry over into everyday life.
We begin with a comprehensive speech sound assessment to understand your child’s unique needs. During this assessment, we determine the type of speech sound disorder, the severity of the difficulties, and specific treatment targets. From there, we recommend an appropriate therapy schedule and frequency to best support steady, meaningful progress.
3. Tracking Progress
Throughout treatment, we regularly track your child’s progress to make sure gains are happening and to see when adjustments to goals or strategies are needed. Our ultimate goal is clear, confident communication across settings—at home, at school, and out in the community.