What is a Speech Pathologist?

A speech pathologist is an allied health professional trained to provide intervention to people who experience communication and speech difficulties. Intervention involves diagnostic assessment and therapy to target a client’s specific areas of needs.

Speech pathologists may work with a person experiencing the following:

  • Language disorders
  • Expressive language difficulties
  • Receptive language difficulties (understanding)
  • Reading comprehension difficulties
  • Reading and spelling disorders (e.g. dyslexia)
  • Difficulty listening and maintaining attention
  • Difficulty producing speech correctly (articulation)
  • Lisps
  • Stutters
  • Speech sound disorders (motor speech/apraxia)
  • Difficulty using the correct sentence structure (grammar)
  • Social language and communication difficulties (pragmatics)
 

Assessment

An initial assessment will take place during your first appointment. Assessment sessions are one hour in duration, however depending on the needs of your child, assessments can take multiple sessions to complete.

The assessment process includes:

  • Obtaining a detailed case history through discussion with parents.
  • Observation of your child during play and testing.
  • Administration of comprehensive standardised assessments to evaluate your child’s abilities and needs.
  • A written report within two weeks of the completion of the assessment.

Note: Step by Step Learning also offers speech pathology screening assessments for preschool aged children. These are ‘mini assessments’ appropriate for parents who are unsure if their child’s communication is developing appropriately.  A screener will identify whether your child’s communication skills are within the average range, or below, and if so, whether a comprehensive assessment is required. To read more about our screeners, please click here.   

Therapy

  • Therapy goals will be obtained from the assessment results and through discussion of priorities with parents.
  • Therapy can be delivered in our office, at school/pre-school or in your home.
  • Therapy sessions allow for individualised time with your child to provide targeted therapy, modelling and instruction is given to parents, as well as guidance with carry over activities to be completed at home. 

Locations

  • Caringbah based office
  • Menai location – within KT Health & Wellness Clinic – Friday’s only 
  • Child’s school, pre-school or day program
  • Home 

Please feel free to get in contact to discuss your child’s difficulties and areas of need. 

Did you know you may be eligible to utilise funding to access speech pathology services?