Speech Therapy: What is It and Why Does Your Child Need It?
The term therapy refers to the treatment of an illness of an individual. Speech therapy refers to a therapy that aims to enhance the language skills of people who has difficulty speaking.
Usually, a child undergoes or receives speech therapy. However, individuals of other age groups may also receive it if required. It deals with the following aspects related to a child’s communicative abilities to assess and improve his/her ability to communicate with others:
- Cognitive skills
- Feeding and swallowing
- Fluency
- The ability to use social language
- Apraxia of speech
- Oral motor dysfunction
- Articulation
- Disorders related to receptive or expressive language
As every child is unique, his/her problems may differ from other children. A solution that works for a kid may be less effective for other toddlers. Therefore, it is necessary to work out a customized plan to tackle the communication issues of a child.
Communication makes a positive contribution to a child’s mental development. Children may face difficulty expressing their opinions or views through communication skills at an early age due to many reasons. If not addressed in time, it may lead to a major communication problem in the subsequent stages of a child’s growth. Speaking of communication issues, they vary from one child to the other.
- Speech disorders
- Stuttering
- Issues with the pronunciation of words
- Issues with the quality or volume of speech
- An issue with the pitch
- A limited or narrow vocabulary
- The lack of a proper understanding of the meaning of different words
Undergoing speech therapy under the supervision of a qualified speech therapist at an early age helps identify the above problems that make it difficult for children to express themselves through their cognitive and language skills. In addition, it is also helpful for those children who suffer from a speech impairment resulting from an injury or illness.
A speech therapist conducts an in-depth analysis to formulate a custom plan. They help children attain their developmental milestones and be on par with their peers by tackling the issues with their communicative abilities. Depending on a child’s language or speech goals, he/she may need a few or multiple speech therapy sessions with a qualified speech therapist.
Benefits of speech therapySpeech therapy adds more weight to a child’s social and mental development through the following benefits:
- Speech therapy facilitates children to express their feelings and thoughts through their communicative or cognitive skills.
- It helps children speak in a way that makes it easy for others to understand what they say.
- It enhances a child’s vocal quality.
- It boosts self-esteem and encourages children to think or express themselves independently.