Services

Klepper Speech and Language provides in-home, evidence-based therapy for school-aged children in the areas of speech sound production, receptive and expressive language, pragmatics (social language), and fluency from ages 3 to 18.

Speech Sound Production: Articulation and Phonolgy

Articulation therapy targets specific errors in speech sound production. Articulation looks at an individual’s ability to produce clear and distinct speech sounds throughout communication. Articulation errors often occur when a child exhibits difficulty coordinating their lips, tongue, teeth, palate, and/or jaw to accurately produce a desired sound. For example, when a child says “wace caw” instead of “race car”.

A phonological process occurs when a child produces continuous patterns of speech sound errors. For example, saying “key” for “tea” or “doe” for “go”.

Receptive and Expressive Language

Receptive and expressive language therapy uncovers a child’s strengths and needs in regards to auditory (listening) comprehension and oral expression. A child who exhibits difficulty with receptive language often stuggles with following multiple step directions, understanding word meaning, and understanding the “big picture” or main idea of a topic. Difficulty with oral expression might present itself in a child who displays multiple grammatical errors when speaking, has difficulty telling a story, and communicating their wants and needs effectively.

Pragmatics

Pragmatics looks at a child’s ability to demonstrate age-appropriate social language through both verbal and non verbal communication. Pragmatic difficulties may include problem solving, initiating and maintaining a topic of conversation, turn taking, perspective taking, and identifying/regulating emotions.

Fluency

Fluency therapy focuses on equipping the individual with fluency shaping techniques and strategies that may be used to elicit smooth speech when a moment of disfluency occurs (stuttering). Fluency disorders are neurological, therefore, therapy is not intented to “fix” a child’s stutter but rather work with the individual to gain confidence in their speech. Throughout therapy the child will have a chance to evaluate their feelings towards their speech and use that information to gain confidence in disclosing their fluency disorders to others.