Speech Pathology Services
The following services are focused on children and young people aged two years and over. The services include the provision of assessment, therapy and programming support for children with developmental difficulties in speech, language or literacy. Solid Foundations has particular expertise in assisting First Peoples children with such services.
As a parent herself, Judy appreciates how important it is for children and families to feel comfortable within an assessment and/or therapy support session. Judy has worked for many years developing her skills to achieve the best from time spent with children and their families. Judy engages in lots of play based assessment tasks. Judy is also experienced at implementing formal, standardised testing and engaging children so they participate to the best of their abilities when testing is necessary. Judy is committed to providing thorough yet accessible reporting to the families of (and other parties concerned with) the children with whom she works. Judy’s fees are published on this site.
Sometimes, parents may not be sure if their child would benefit from seeing a speech-language pathologist. In this case, Judy is available to first talk to over the phone to help parents decide whether they would like their child to see a speech-language pathologist.
Judy loves working with bilingual children. Bilingual children develop their languages in different ways from monolingual children. Judy is able to help parents and teachers understand when a bilingual child’s underlying communication development system is fine, in which case speech-language pathology services are not needed. Judy is also able to assist those bilingual children who do have some form of underlying communication impairment develop their bilingual communication skills.
Can a speech-language pathologist help?
Each child is a unique, special person and rates and patterns of development can vary between children. As a guide, it would be advisable to contact a speech-language pathologist if:
- Your child can speak using sentences or likes trying to have conversations but you or others you know have trouble understanding what your child is saying.
- Your child’s same-age friends can’t understand what your child is saying.
- Your child is worried about one or more of his or her own speech, language, reading, spelling and/or writing abilities.
- Your child started talking later than other children you know and continues to sound different from other children of his or her age.
- Your child’s literacy development is less than expected for his or her age and time spent in formal education.
- Your child doesn’t seem to understand what you say to him or her or follow directions or instructions, unlike other children his or her age.
- Your child doesn’t seem to use words well, perhaps leaving words out of sentences or mixing words up.
- Your child doesn’t have conversations like other children his or her age.
- Your child seems to have trouble fitting in socially or appears to be anxious or reluctant to engage in conversations with peers or others.
Speech-language pathologists are able to assist children (and their families) who present with medical or neuro-developmental conditions which can impact communication development, such as hearing impairment, Autism Spectrum Disorder or Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.