Speech Language Terms:

• Feeding therapy: to encourage the child to achieve age appropriate milestones in feeding. For example, moving from Stage 1 baby food to Stage 2, accepting a variety of textures and drinking from an open cup.

• Oral Motor therapy: to improve range of motion needed for feeding, to decrease drooling and increase awareness of oral structures used in speech. It generally incorporates exercises for strength, sensation, and coordination of muscles involved in feeding and swallowing.

• Speech Therapy: to improve the production of sounds the child makes in order to be understood better.

• Language Therapy: to encourage the child to use a variety of vocalizations or words paired with communication behaviors in order to meet the child’s wants or needs.

• Augmentative Communication: to assist communication of the child without using language by providing pictures of desired objects, assisting the child to be more independent and understanding cause and effect relationships. Augmentative Communication does not replace speech but only enhances and assists communication.

• Play-based Therapy: to encourage more symbolic play. This in turn is represented in language as it develops more and more.