Talking With Tots
Altru’s Talking with Tots is a speech language skills group for children ages 2-3 years to teach them appropriate ways to interact and engage with those around them. Talking with Tots typically involves small groups of 4-5 children with a therapist facilitator. This group promotes social skills and language development using sensory, art, music, and fine motor activities.
Connecting Club
Altru’s Connecting Club is a speech language social skills group for children ages 8-12 years to improve social communication and engagement skills. Connecting Club typically involves small groups of 4-5 children with a therapist facilitator. This group promotes social skills and language development using sensory activities, engineering activities, games, and fine motor activities.
OroFacial Myology
Orofacial Myology includes the assessment of the muscles of the face, mouth, and neck and how the use of these muscles impacts speech, chewing, swallowing, and the growth and development of the face and mouth. Oromyofunctional treatment helps improve muscle strength or movement patterns, so they become balanced and/or move appropriately. Oromyofunctional therapy targets breathing, speaking, eating, drinking, and sleeping better.
Do you know a child who exhibits any of the following signs? If the answer is yes, to any of the following, then we are here to help.
- Is your child a messy eater?
- Does your child snore at night?
- Does your child grind their teeth at night?
- Does your child have misaligned teeth?
- Is your child over the age of 2 and still drooling?
- Is your child over the age of 3 and still sucking their thumb?
- Does your child push their tongue against their teeth while talking or eating/swallowing?
Tongue Tie
Tongue tie is a condition that restricts the tongue’s normal movement. This restriction can result in atypical movement patterns or contribute to functional problems with feeding, eating, or breathing effectively. We complete functional evaluations for tongue ties from infancy through childhood. Our evaluations are comprehensive, focusing on the way that restriction impacts speaking, feeding and/or breaking properly.
Dyslexia Services
Our speech pathologists are trained in the Orton-Gillingham approach. Orton-Gillingham is a direct, explicit, multi-sensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic and prescriptive way to teach literacy when readying, writing and spelling does not come easily to individual. Especially those with dyslexia. This program is taught using all types of learning including: visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic learning.
SOS Approach to Feeding
The SOS Approach to Feeding is a unique pediatric feeding program based on the work of psychologist Dr. Kay Toomey, PhD. It is designed to assist children and their caregivers who are experiencing difficulties with feeding. Home programming is essential to the success of this approach. At Altru Pediatric Therapy we work closely with families to provide home programming to manage their challenges of their child’s specific needs as it relates to feeding.
The SOS approach can improve or increase a child’s:
- Overreactions at mealtime
- Ability to gain weight
- Oral motor skills
- Willingness to interact or try new foods
- Transition to the next stage of foods
PROMPT
Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT) uses touch cues to a patient’s jaw, tongue, land lips to manually guide them through a targeted word, phrase or sentence. This technique develops motor control and the developmental of proper oral muscular movements, such as jaw sliding and inadequate lip rounding.
PROMPT is appropriate for a wide range of patients with speech disorders. The most common patients have motor speech disorders, articulation problems or are non-verbal children. Many patients with aphasia, apraxia/dyspraxia, dysarthria, pervasive developmental disorders, cerebral palsy, acquired brain injuries and autism spectrum disorders have benefitted from PROMPT therapy.
Do you know a child who exhibits any of the following signs:
- Does your child have a diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech?
- Does your child have a motor speech disorder?
- Does your child demonstrate multiple articulation or sound production errors?
- Is your child’s speech not able to be understood due to sound production errors?
If you answered yes to any of the questions above, our PROMPT therapists can help.
