Services provided by River Speech

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River Speech provides speech pathology services focusing on 3 main areas – feeding and mealtime support, speech & literacy. 

River Speech can provide support in this clinical area for any age.

Services can be provided to support with;

• Infant feeding difficulties – breast, bottle
• Swallowing safety concerns (diagnosed or suspected) – aspiration, regular coughing, gagging or choking
• Transitioning to solids
• Difficulties chewing foods 
• Food or mealtime challenges associated with a medical diagnosis
• Management of modified diets

Words are made up of individual sounds. When these sounds are said incorrectly, it can make children difficult to understand. It is normal for young children, as they are learning to talk, to make speech sound errors; however, some children continue to have difficulties making certain sounds. These ongoing difficulties can impact a child’s ability to be understood, can cause them to become frustrated when communicating with others and can impact their literacy development as they enter educational settings.

Speech refers to how clearly speech sounds are produced. By supporting a child to be able to correctly say sounds, we are helping them to be able to confidently communicate with those around them. 

As a general rule, services to support children with speech sound difficulties can commence at 3-3 ½ years of age (please keep in mind that all children are different & this is a very general rule!). 

River Speech provides services up until the end of primary school age for speech sound  

Support in the area of literacy helps our young people to read, write and spell. Very simply, reading involves decoding (correctly identifying words) and comprehension (understanding the meaning of words) – it is actually way more complicated than that!

Speech pathology support for literacy can focus on the building blocks for reading, writing & spelling. This includes building a child’s knowledge of letters and sounds; helping a child to blend and break-up sounds to discover words; and, supporting their ability to understand what they can read. 

River Speech provides services up until the end of primary school age for literacy difficulties.