Families often spend years going from therapist to therapist and specialist to specialist trying to solve their child's speech issues. A child with speech challenges may be asked to undergo oral surgery, endure teeth extractions and tongue cribs or have their tonsils removed.
Our team can often identify the physical challenges that slow or prevent progress towards clear speech. Then correct them through less invasive means.
For one child we reversed sleep apnea, mouth breathing and forward tongue thrust that put a stop to further face flattening along with minimising the potential long term TMJ complications.
Our team achieved this result by identifying this child's food intolerances, providing uncommon exercises, specialist orthodontic care and a sleep appliance.
Parents and support coordinators rightly want a child's speech issues successfully corrected at an early age. Waiting until the child is a teen to finally get a solution can often be too late. By this time the child has been through years of struggle and disappointment and has become too discouraged to participate in therapy.
There is no one-size-fits-all.
Each child is carefully assessed to uncover all the issues that could be affecting the success of therapy.
Mouth breathing’s short-term and long-term effects can be catastrophic on both health and speech. A permanent resolution is crucial for optimal oral functionality.
Specialist orthodontists treat children as young as age 3 to maximise the opportunity of normal speech development and potentially avoiding the much more costly option of jaw surgery during adolescence.
Undetected mild intolerances to basic foods can create breathing challenges and a cascade of negative health consequences including speech.
Muscle tone can significantly impact speech; congenital disabilities and the impact of years of childhood finger sucking and mouth breathing.
Adequate hearing isn't optimised hearing and often undiagnosed ear canal and wax generation conditions that require regular maintenance could be the difference.
Many of these methods fall outside the world of speech therapy.
Our broader, multi-disciplinary approach gives children a wider palette of solutions often needed for resolution and recovery.
We can answer your questions and offer solutions.
Let's give your child optimal health and the best opportunity for improved speech.