What are The Benefits of Speech-Language Therapy for Australian Kids?

Do you suspect your child has speech and language issues?

Is your kid diagnosed with a disorder that disrupts his/her speech, fluency or language, but you aren’t sure how effective speech-language therapy could be?

While a few parents think that their kids with language problems will eventually learn to speak fluently and get involved socially, experts and professionals in this field recommend getting the kid diagnosed at an early stage so that the right treatment and therapies, such as the speech-language therapy can be implemented. 

However, several parents or a family member, for that matter, neglects the use of speech-language therapy reasoning regarding its benefits while wondering if it’s even effective in the long term. 

According to a study, Australian speech-language pathologists indicate towards the families who were engaged in early speech-language pathology/therapy intervention and are actively invested in it today, inside and outside of the health centre. 

Introducing Speech-Language Therapy To Children

If your child finds it hard to articulate sounds or communicate verbally, he/she might also have issues with stuttering, literacy or language skills. The professionals of Tomatis® Australia recommend early intervention, since the introduction of speech and language therapy can fade the symptoms of these impairments and disorders.  

Speech pathologists outline the varied milestones that should be achieved by kids in expected timeframes. The communication milestone also works the same way. By 12 months, children usually can make eye contact, and by the age of 2, they can say more than 50 single words. 

A typical child learns to speak and communicate with the early educators and family members during his/her childhood. In the same way, children with speech and language disorders can benefit from early educators, their families, and speech pathologists for effective communication development and emotional support. 

By introducing speech and language therapy or sound therapy, you will be helping your kid or someone you know with,

• Making eye contact.
• Taking turns for communication.
• The understanding and usage of symbols, pictures, speech sounds, words, gestures, and sentences. 
• Voice and stuttering difficulties.
• Building and enhancing the skills for reading and writing. 

How Can You/Your Child Benefit from Speech-Language Therapy?

On a regular day of a child’s life, with the lack of verbal communication and ability to socially interact with others, he/she undermines themselves. The inability to express themselves takes a huge emotional toll on them. Now, no parent would want a difficult life for their child.

Since it’s hard to trust therapy and its long-term assistance, the professionals of Tomatis have listed down some of the benefits of speech-language therapy to make you understand its importance. 

1.Improved Communication Skills – Communication skills play a very crucial role in your child’s development since it helps in engaging and generating relationships. Lack of social language skills can entail disorganised speech while telling a story, poor eye contact or inappropriately staring, limited use of language, and inability to understand personal space, among others. 

To overcome these communication issues, speech pathologists have been developing successful tools and strategies over the years. Educating about facial expressions, turn-taking, and using language to express feelings or complex ideas, are some of the exercises that are commonly used in speech-language therapy to aid the kids’ speech issues.

2. Aids in Social Skills – Representing courtesy and respect and being mindful of others’ feelings are critical social skills. Lack of social skills in your child’s or an adult’s life might occur due to autism. However, speech and language disorders can be present in any individual. While social skills are important to maintain relationships, their absence can lead people to misunderstand the message. 

Speech-language therapy involves the use of varied techniques, tools and strategies, from one to one sessions, brainstorming to problem-solving, thereby aiming to improve conversational skills and the skill to communicate both verbally and nonverbally. 

3. Can Help with Stuttering – While stuttering is the most common communication issue among children or adults with speech fluency, it is also the most inconvenient disorder that can result in misinterpretation of intentions and focus on the wrong information, which can further lead to isolation or frustration.

The level of treatment depends on the severity of the stuttering issue. Head jerks, facial tics, clenching fists, rapid eye blinks, and limited communication are some of the symptoms of stuttering. Tools such as interacting with your child by playing, offering a relaxed environment at home, encouraging speaking games to make communication fun, providing several opportunities to talk, and listening to your kid without interrupting the sentences can help him/her to improve their speech. 

4. Receptive Language – This communication disorder can be caused by a stroke, seizure, or any other traumatic head injury. However, auditory processing disorder can also impact a child’s receptive language skills. Social and communication skills do not limit to just speaking and expressing oneself; it extends to the ability to understand the language for better vocabulary and conversations with peers. 

It is important to note that receptive language is a vital foundational skill for kids, and professionals can help you or your kid by implementing visual cues, repetition and gestures to increase language acquisition, functional language for day to day situations (“get your shoes”), and simple phrases to engage children in listening and talking. 

5. Cognitive-Communication Skills – Issues and difficulties in cognitive processes that involve attention, memory, problem-solving, executive functions, and reasoning that can affect verbal and nonverbal communication. 

Speech and language therapy can help develop the necessary skills where speech-language pathologists assist your kid on how to coordinate their mouth and mind to produce sound speech accurately. 

Communication is the essence of human life, which is why it is critical for children to acquire help if there are any issues with their speech and language. 

“I know other people in the world who have far worse things to deal with, but I have a problem. I have a stutter,” – Megan Washington, an Australian singer-songwriter. 

If years of speech therapy can help Megan intimidate her stuttering issue, even you can. 

Who can Benefit from Speech-Language Therapy?

Auditory processing and autism treatments involve speech therapy almost for every 9 out of 10 individuals with these disorders. If you, your kid or someone you care about has the following conditions, then speech-language therapy can be beneficial. 

• Stuttering (Fluency disorder) – If you are repeating or prolonging words, syllables, or phrases.
• Articulation disorder – If your child distorts, swaps, or adds word sounds, like saying ‘coo’ instead of ‘school’ or ‘puhlay’ instead of ‘play’.
• Aphasia – This is a common disorder among adults and is mostly caused by strokes. In this condition, you may lose the ability to understand or express language. 
• Resonance disorder – In this case, you will come across a blockage of regular airflow in the nasal or oral cavities, which is responsible for disrupting your voice quality. 
• Expressive disorder – This disorder is related to Down syndrome and hearing loss which results in difficulty expressing information and forming accurate sentences. 
• Dysarthria – Due to facial paralysis, this condition renders you slow or slurred speech. 
• Receptive disorder – This disorder can cause trouble with understanding and processing language.
• Cognitive-communication disorder – This disorder can be caused by certain neurological conditions, stroke, brain injury, abnormal brain development or biological problems. If you have this condition, you will find it difficult to listen, speak or solve any kind of problem.

Is There An Alternative To Speech Therapy?

While several speech pathology services are available free of cost in Australia, there are certain barriers available to actually acquiring access to these services. One of the barriers reveals the lack of availability of these services, especially in regional and remote Australia.

If you have auditory processing difficulties or poor auditory discrimination, autism, or any other condition that gives rise to speech and language issues, then the Tomatis® professionals in Australia are here for you. Along with speech-language therapy,  the Tomatis® Method works mainly with music (by Mozart or other composers as well) played over the special device to re-pattern the nervous system, improve memory and focus, boosting self-awareness and confidence while promoting circulation to the auditory system.

Overpower The Speech & Language Disorder with Tomatis® Australia

The Tomatis® Method is employed to improve the auditory processing while using music to enhance physical, cognitive, and interpersonal skills along with emotion regulation. Among varied methods, sound healing, music healing, and sound training help in creating vibrations, communicating, expressing, and identifying and creating frequencies specific to the listener.

The benefits of speech-language therapy and the Tomatis® Method are clearly mentioned, which include but are not limited to:

• Improving attention and concentration.
• Enhancing comprehension and learning skills.
• Developing speech and language skills with socialisation.
• Promoting a better quality of life.

Contact us today to engage with our Tomatis® professionals in Australia or Psychologist, Certified Tomatis® Consultant, Françoise Nicoloff, who personally explored the path of The Tomatis® Method with Dr. Alfred Tomatis.