Articulation is the way we use our lips, tongue, teeth, and air to make individual speech sounds. A child may have difficulty with one sound or several. You might hear “wing” instead of “ring,” a lisp on the S sound, or “swip” instead of “slip”

Therapy helps children learn how to make these sounds more clearly and begin using them naturally in everyday conversation.

Phonological processing patterns occur when a child uses the same type of sound change across many words. For example, they might leave off ending sounds and say “cah” instead of “cat,” or replace sounds like S and F with a T sound.

Some patterns are expected while speech is developing. When they continue longer than expected, however, they can make a child difficult to understand. Therapy helps children recognize and change these patterns so their speech becomes clearer.

Language is how children understand words and use them to share their thoughts and ideas. Receptive language is what a child understands, while expressive language is the words they use.

Language difficulties may look like trouble following directions, answering questions, learning new words, using complete sentences, or telling a story in order. Therapy helps children build the skills they need to communicate more clearly at home, at school, and with others.

Social communication is how children use language to connect with other people. It includes starting and maintaining conversations, taking turns, staying on topic, noticing context, tone of voice, and body language, and recognizing when a message has been misunderstood.

Therapy helps children develop flexible strategies for friendships, interactions, self-advocacy, and everyday conversations- without expecting every child to communicate in exactly the same way.

Fluency is the flow and rhythm of speech. Stuttering may sound like repeated sounds or words, stretched-out sounds, or moments when speech feels stuck. Some children may also show tension or physical movements when trying to talk.

Many young children go through periods of disfluency as their language develops- both of my own kids did! An evaluation can help determine whether what you’re hearing is typical developmental disfluency or stuttering that may benefit from support. Therapy focuses on helping children communicate with greater ease and confidence while helping families know how to respond.

Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and work with the sounds in spoken words. It includes noticing rhymes, breaking words into syllables, and blending or separating individual sounds—like hearing that “cat” has three sounds: /k/ /a/ /t/. Before children ever open a book, they must learn to notice, play with, and break apart the individual sounds they hear in spoken language.

These skills help build a foundation for reading and spelling. Therapy uses playful, purposeful activities to strengthen sound awareness and connect those sounds to letters and words.