Pediatric Speech Therapy

Pediatric speech-language pathologists work to help children communicate effectively by assisting with both receptive and expressive language skills. They may also work with children on feeding, social skills, and functional language development.

Speech-language pathologists strive to make every therapy session feel like play by focusing on each child’s interest and ability to engage with others.

A language disorder refers to a problem understanding or putting words together to communicate ideas. Language disorders can be either receptive or expressive:

  • Receptive disorders are problems with understanding or processing language.

  • Expressive disorders are problems with putting words together, having a limited vocabulary, or being unable to use language in a socially appropriate way.

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The Shoreline Center is proud to offer the following Speech and Language services:

Comprehensive Speech and Language Evaluations

Speech and Language Therapy addressing:

  • Speech production, articulation, and phonology

  • Apraxia of speech

  • Grammar/syntax

  • Vocabulary

  • Receptive and expressive language

  • Conversation and narrative skills

  • Social language

  • Oral motor and feeding difficulties

  • Attention, executive functioning, and problem solving

  • Auditory processing

  • Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC)

  • S.O.S. Approach to Feeding

    • For children with food avoidances, a limited diet or who are “picky eaters”

  • Block Therapy

    • Intensive speech and language therapy program

Block Therapy™

Block Therapy™ is an intensive speech therapy program, developed and used for more than 10 years by Sweeney, Augustin and Associates (Skokie, Illinois), that is based on current research in neuroplasticity and the underlying issues related to speech and language disorders.  The Block schedule (30 sessions of speech and language intervention delivered daily over six weeks) was designed to address what is known about neuroplasticity -- that brain structure can change, and that intensive intervention can have a more significant effect on the structure and organization of the brain than intervention offered on a less intensive basis.

We offer a variety of traditional therapy, as well as more intensive treatment programs, or Block Therapy™ determined on the individualized needs of each client.

Who is a Candidate for a Block?

Block Therapy™ is ideal for children or adults with communication challenges, including oral and/or verbal apraxia, oral motor delays, phonological or articulation disorders, auditory processing disorders, executive functioning disorders, social language disorders, expressive and receptive language disorders, and speech and language difficulties related to autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disorders. It is particularly effective with children who have made slow progress or stopped making progress in traditional speech therapy or who present with complex issues that have been resistant to change.  Following a Block, children can return to their primary therapies (school and/or private) ready to tackle new, higher-level goals. Currently several different types of Blocks have been developed. These include:

  • First Word Blocks for children of any age who are not yet speaking;

  • Requesting Blocks which teach use of language to meet needs or wants;

  • Commenting Blocks focusing on using speech to make comments, an important skill in the development of conversation;

  • Conversation Blocks designed to teach conversation and social language skills;  

  • “Breaking the Code,”  a Block focusing on building sentence production and grammar skills;

  • Narrative Blocks which teach story grammar and/or personal narratives;

  • Speech Production Blocks to help children with articulation and phonological disorders;

  • Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Blocks  for children beginning to use high- or low-tech communication devices.

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