Developmental milestones are identifiable skills that can serve as a guide to normal development.  There is a general age and time when most children pass through these periods.  These milestones help doctors and other health professionals determine when a child may need extra help to learn to speak or to use language.  Use the table below to determine if you or someone you know could benefit from a FREE in-office screening.

The term developmental delay means that a child is not meeting developmental milestones at the expected age. While it’s not always clear what is causing the delay, early intervention can often help kids catch up. Developmental disabilities are issues that kids don’t outgrow or catch up from, though they can make progress. Some conditions that can cause developmental disabilities include: Autism, Down syndrome, and brain injuries.

Speech is how we say sounds and words to communicate. Speech includes:

• Articulation: How we make speech sounds using the mouth, lips, and tongue. For example, we need to be able to say the “r” sound to say "rabbit" instead of "wabbit.”
• Voice: How we use our vocal folds and breath to make sounds. Our voice can be loud or soft or high-pitched or low-pitched.
• Fluency: This is the rhythm of our speech. We sometimes repeat sounds or pause while talking. People who do this a lot may stutter.

Language refers to the words we use and how we use them to share ideas and get what we want. Language includes:

• What words mean. Some words have more than one meaning. For example, “star” can be a bright object in the sky or someone famous.
• How to make new words. For example, we can say “friend,” “friendly,” or “unfriendly” and mean something different.
• How to put words together. For example, in English we say, “John rode his bike to the store” instead of “John bike ride store.”
• What we should say at different times. For example, we might be polite and say, “Excuse me. ” But, if the person does not move, we may say, “Get out of my way!”

A feeding disorder includes developmentally atypical eating and drinking behaviors, such as not accepting age-appropriate liquids or foods, being unable to use age-appropriate feeding devices and utensils, or being unable to self-feed.

Dysphagia, a medical term used to describe a swallowing disorder, can result from decreased function of the oral, pharyngeal, or esophageal structures. Signs/Symptoms of a swallowing disorder include: abnormal oral feeding / chewing, coughing or choking with food or liquid, wet vocal quality, food refusal, prolonged eating times, pneumonia or respiratory problems.

We understand the complexity of hiring staff to provide medically necessary speech and language services within the settings of schools and private facilities.  Without extensive knowledge about speech and language therapy, it can be difficult for facilities to know if their students and patients are being provided the best care.  Speechcenter, Inc. offers a wide variety of contract services.  Our services have been used for situations as temporary as covering a medical leave, to contract needs as extensive as staffing entire departments for entire school systems.  Contact Us today to see how we can help with your contract needs!