Melanie

ulkey

Speech Therapist

Mission Statement: To enhance each student’s communication skills in the classroom, ( to improve academic success and involvement, appropriate social interaction and language skills), with teachers and fellow students.

What does a Speech Therapist do?

* screen Speech and Language skills

* hearing screenings

* provide parents/caregiver information on Speech/Language development

* meet with teachers to discuss how to enhance a student’s communication in the classroom

* fully evaluate and test a child that has failed a screening (with parent’s permission)

* assess the following skills/areas: production of sounds (articulation), expressive & receptive language skills, auditory processing, social skills (pragmatics), voice (vocal nodules) and fluency (stuttering).

* provide therapy for students identified as Speech or Language Impaired

* collaborate with parents to help incorporate therapy strategies and techniques at home

· · collaborate with other professionals - Occupational Therapist, Adapted Physical Education teacher, Physical Therapist, Special Education Instructors, Hearing Impaired teacher, Psychologist, Social Worker, Gifted teacher, Educational Diagnostician etc.

SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

0 –6 MONTHS: startle response to sound, repeats the same sounds, frequently coos, gurgles, and makes

pleasure sounds, uses a different cry to express different needs, smiles when spoken to,

recognizes voices, localizes sound by turning the head, quieted by the human voice, listens

to speech, imitates sounds, uses sounds or gestures to indicate wants, varies pitch and loud-

ness, and uses the following sounds in babbling: b, p, m.

7-12 MONTHS: understands NO and HOT, understands and responds to own name, listens to and

imitates more sounds, recognizes words for common items (cup, shoe, juice), babbles

using long and short groups of sounds, uses a song-like intonation pattern when babbling,

imitates some adult speech sounds and intonation pattersn, uses speech sounds rather than

only crying to get attention, listens when spoken to, uses sound approxiamations, begins to

change babbling to jargon, uses speech intentionally for the first time, vocabulary of 1-3 words,

uses nouns almost exclusively, understands simple commands, uses variety of sounds and

vowels.

13-18 MONTHS: uses adult-like intonation patterns, uses echolalia and jargon, uses jargon to fill in gaps

fluency, omits some initial consonants and almost all final consonants, produces mostly

unintelligible speech, follows simple commands, has an expressive vocabulary of 3-20 words,

produces 2-word phrases, combines gestures and vocalizations and requests items.

19-24 MONTHS: uses words more frequently than jargon, has an expressive vocabulary of 50-100 words,

has a receptive vocabulary of 300 or more words, starts to combine nouns and verbs, begins

to use pronouns (I and mine), maintains unstable voice control, uses appropriate intonation

for questions, is approximately 25-50% intelligible to strangers, answers “what’s that”

questions, enjoys listening to stories, knows 5 body parts, accurately names few familiar

objects and follows 2-part commands.

2-3 YEARS: speech is 50-75% intelligible, understands “one” and “all”, verbalizes toilet needs, requests

items by name, responds to some yes/no questions, names everyday objects, points to

pictures in a book, answers simple questions, asks 1-2 word questions, uses 3-4 word

phrases, uses some prepositions, articles, present progressive verbs, regular plurals,

contractions, irregular past tense forms and negation (no or not), uses some regular past

tense verbs, possessive morphemes, pronouns and imperatives, produces several forms of

questions, understands why, who, whose and how many

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
See students	See students	See students	See students	Testing, Meetings, etc.

WEB SITES OF INTEREST:

www.language-express.com

www.disciplinehelp.com

www.charliefrench.com (LEAP)

www.listen-up.org (hearing impaired)

www.familyeducation.com/home/

//do2learn.com

www.speechfun.com

www.speechteach.co.uk/index.htm

E-Mail Address: Melanie.mulkey@lpsb.org

To schedule a conference, please call the school at 664-4223