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- Jennifer
- Lozano
- 12189 7th Street, Suite 3
Yucaipa
California
92399
United States - Playing Our Part Speech Therapy, P.C.
Yucaipa
California
92399
United States
Before treatment begins, an evaluation will be performed in which I explore your child's success with consonants, vowels, and syllable shapes that are present with and without multisensory cues. A small set of targets, between 5-10 words, that are both functional and meaningful to your child will be selected. These selected words will include syllable patterns that your child can already use, along with novel vowels and consonants. Additionally, a few word targets will include at least one new syllable pattern. My goal during treatment with your child is not to introduce speech sounds, rather, when working with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), the focus is on the movements between sounds and syllables. Rate and prosody will also be a focus as to assist in the word sounding natural. Cues will be faded and added accordingly, working towards independence. Beginning of treatment will begin with working on watching my mouth and producing simultaneous productions with me. I'll provide specific feedback and cues. My application of feedback and cues will continue throughout the various steps as well as promoting regular rate and various prosodies. I will then work towards direct imitation with your child so that he/she is no longer relying on producing the sound simultaneously along with me. Next, I will integrate delayed imitation in which there is a pause between my production of the word and your child's. Finally, spontaneous production is our goal. Progress will continue to be monitored. Any adjustments to therapy techniques will be considered and applied if necessary. Quick transitions between play and repetitions will be implemented in order to keep your child engaged, yet continuing to achieve several productions.
As a parent, you will be closely involved in therapy, learning how to use the DTTC hierarchy and other cueing techniques. You will also learn why specific target words are selected. By participating in sessions, you can develop the confidence to effectively support your child’s daily practice. I encourage parents to help their child focus on watching my mouth, which reinforces speech motor skills. As your child progresses and masters certain words, those will be assigned for homework to promote more spontaneous practice, helping your child to generalize these speech movements.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) plays a key role in supporting children to communicate effectively, especially those with apraxia. This is because AAC assists in communication. Children with apraxia may be difficult to understand which can cause social difficulties, frustrations with others, and/or lack of motivation to communicate. Although in treatment sessions we will be working on our verbal ability to move through sounds and syllables, we also want to provide a way in which a child can effectively communicate with others that can eliminate a majority of frustrations and allow your child to be motivated to communicate with others. I incorporate both high-tech and low-tech AAC tools in therapy and encourage families to use AAC outside of therapy. For children with severe apraxia or poor speech intelligibility, I often recommend high-tech AAC devices to ensure they always have a way to communicate. AAC can be empowering as not only does it include common single words, but can also include personalized vocabulary and pre-stored phrases. AAC is an area I specialize in and am more than happy to discuss the topic of AAC further.