Communication difficulties may be identified in various forms. Some children may express nonverbal communication difficulties, while others may be able to communicate verbally but rarely do so spontaneously. For example, they do not like to ask questions or comment on their own initiative.
We use our own communication temptation method by changing the setting and piquing your child’s interest to encourage them to communicate. The whole session is conducted in an enjoyable manner while helping your child develop their communication skills and boost their usage of natural language. Subsequently, our goal is to help your child be able to speak in the appropriate situations.
At A Glance
Age:
Duration:
Parents can choose between:
- Any day between Mondays to Sundays (8:30 am to 6 pm)
- Morning or afternoon plans
- 1 hour
Ratio:
1:1
*Note: Conducted once or twice per week
Language:
English, Chinese
Learning Outline
At ARN, our unique Speech Therapy focuses on supporting your child’s acquisition of speech for communication. The approaches used include:
Oral Placement Therapy
Our Oral Placement Therapy uses a combination of:
- auditory stimulation,
- visual stimulation and
- tactile stimulation to the mouth to improve speech clarity.
Talktools® are used to teach children where, when and how to place and move their jaws, lips and tongues to produce specific speech sounds accurately.
Oral Motor Therapy
Children with speech delay may also have oral motor delay. They may lack awareness of their oral area or have weak oral muscles.
They do not know where their jaw, lips and tongue are and how they should move them to make specific oral movements.
Oral motor exercises, using Talktools®, are prescribed to increase oral awareness and strengthen oral muscles.
Communication through Routines, Activities and Play
Children must be motivated to use speech for communication. e.g. ask for help/needs/wants, accepting (saying ‘yes’) and rejecting (‘no’).
In our Speech Therapy, your child will be encouraged to practise asking throughout their day, i.e. in routines, class activities and play.
Feeding Therapy
Some children with autism experience feeding issues. They may be fussy eaters due to sensory issues and/or the lack of motor skills for feeding.
Our Speech Therapy focuses on neutralising oral sensation and building feeding skills through pre-feeding and feeding programmes.
FAQ
More On Our Speech Therapy
Not all children with ASD suffer from language deficits, and their difficulties may be more social in nature. However, if your child does suffer from some form of speech delay, a speech-language pathologist can address specific challenges that our behavioural therapists cannot, such as oral-motor disorders, articulation and fluency.
This therapy is suitable for your child once they have acquired early learner skills such as being able to pay attention, listen and cooperate. Your child’s programme supervisor can advise you when is the best time to introduce speech therapy.
We partner with speech therapists who have a good understanding of ABA-VB from working alongside ARN therapists on a daily basis. They are comfortable with collaboration and communicate well with our therapists. In this way, we ensure that our speech therapy services work together with our ABA-VB programmes.
