Specialized Services

Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy refers to disorders that involve the muscle control. Cerebral palsy is usually congenital and becomes evident early in life. It affects muscle tone, movement and motor skills. Cerebral palsy can also lead to other health issues including vision, speech and hearing problems and learning disabilities.

Cause: Majority of the cases result from pregnancy complications in which the brain is either damaged or doesn't develop normally. This can be due to infection, maternal health problems, labor complications or that interferes with normal brain development. In some cases, it can be acquired later, for example, as a result of a head injury. The symptoms are evident within the first three years of life.

Children with cerebral palsy may present with delayed receptive and/or expressive language skills. Individuals with Cerebral Palsy may also present with imprecise articulation (Dysarthria) resulting in decreased speech clarity. Speech deficits also occur because of poor respiratory control resulting from muscle weakness. The incidence of dysarthria may vary in relation to the type and degree of motor impairment. They may also have feeding, drinking or swallowing problems.

Let's Talk Speech Therapy provides a variety of resources and therapies for individuals with Cerebral Palsy to improve their communication, oro motor and feeding skills. Ms. Kothari will work with physical and occupational therapists and parents to encourage suitable learning activities. We aim to improve their quality of life and maximize their potential.

Cleft Lip Palate

Oro facial clefts are birth defects that result because of incomplete development of lips and/or palate during early fetal formation. It occurs when parts of the lip or palate do not fuse together during first trimester. Cleft may vary in size. It could vary from being a small defect in soft palate to a complete cleft that extends through the hard palate.

Children with Cleft Lip- Palate may present with compensatory sound production errors. They may produce sounds farther back in the mouth than normal or they may block air using vocal cords than lips (glottal stop). The other speech errors noted are hyper nasality, weak pressure consonants and audible nasal emissions. Sound distortions secondary to dental malocclusions may also occur. In some children delayed language development because of frequent middle ear infections, hospitalization and illness is also seen.

At Let’s Talk Speech Therapy phonetic placement tools, age- appropriate stimulus material and oral airflow facilitator tools are used to improve speech clarity. Intervention is focused on improving muscle strength and correcting faulty sound production patterns.

Down’s Syndrome

Down's syndrome is a genetic condition also known as trisomy 21, where the individual inherits an extra 21st chromosome resulting in physical and cognitive development delay.

Individuals with Down's syndrome typically have a flat facial profile and eyes that slant upwards. Other facial features include smaller ears, flattened nasal bridge, flat back of the head, smaller oral cavity and protruding tongue. They also present with hypotonia (reduced tone) of oro-facial muscles.

Down’s syndrome affects child's ability to learn. These children can do most of what the other children can do but they usually develop much later in comparison with their age counterparts. They may have mild to moderate intellectual impairment. Children with Down’s syndrome commonly present with delayed expressive and receptive language. Impaired articulation and feeding problems are also commonly noted.

With early therapy at Let’s Talk Speech Therapy, children with Down's syndrome can learn and master developing skills and achieve optimum results.

Hearing Impairment

Hearing impairment or deafness occurs when hearing is affected by a disease, disorder or injury. Impairment can be present at birth or it can develop at a later stage during childhood or adulthood. It can be sudden or progressive.

There are two main types of hearing loss. Conductive hearing loss where sounds are unable to pass from the outer ear to the inner ear often as the result of a blockage such as earwax or a build-up of fluid caused by conditions such as glue ear or an ear infection (otitis media). While Sensori-neural hearing loss occurs as a result of damage to the sensitive hair cells inside the cochlea or the auditory nerve either naturally through ageing or as a result of an injury. Another common cause of hearing loss is damage to the ear from loud noises. This is known as acoustic trauma.

The treatment of hearing impairment will depend on the underlying cause of the condition. Some conditions may be medically and surgically treated. Whereas, in case of others, individuals may need to be fitted with appropriate hearing aids or Cochlear Implants. At Let’s Talk Speech Therapy we provide Aural Rehabilitation services to children and adults with hearing impairment to facilitate appropriate speech and language skills.

Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson ’s disease is a degenerative disease affecting nuclei in the midbrain and brain stem. The primary symptoms are motoric and include muscle rigidity, resting tremor, slowness or abolition of movement, difficulty to initiate movement and loss of balance. Parkinson’s disease is slightly more likely to affect men than women.

Individuals with Parkinson’s disease often first complain that their voice has become weak and others cannot hear them in noisy environments. As disease progresses, their speech becomes rapid and phonetic distinctions diminish or disappear. Rapid stuttering-like repetitions of words, syllables and phrases may appear. Drooling and Dysphagia (swallowing difficulties) may occur in the middle stages. In later stages, comprehension of complex information may also begin to deteriorate.

At Let’s Talk Speech Therapy we employ and recommend appropriate communication techniques and exercises that will improve their daily communication skills. We also evaluate swallow function and recommend changes as necessary.

Traumatic Brain Injury

Any injury to the head may cause traumatic brain injury (TBI). Common causes of TBI may include accidents and falls. There are two major types of TBI. Penetrating Injuries where a foreign object enters the brain and causes damage to specific brain parts or injuries resulting from a blow to the head known as Closed Head Injuries.

Adults and children with traumatic brain injury often have cognitive, swallowing and/or communication problems that significantly impair their ability to live independently. These problems vary depending on how widespread brain damage is and the location of the injury.

Individuals may experience speech and language problems such as word finding difficulty, poor sentence formulation, lengthy and faulty explanations. Many present with difficulty in understanding multiple meanings in jokes, sarcasm and figurative language. Example: They may have difficulty with understanding proverbs such as “Take a flying leap.” Reading and writing difficulties may also exist. Speech production may also be impaired. Speech may sound slow and labored. Dysarthria or Apraxia can co-exist besides cognitive and language impairments. Swallowing difficulty (Dysphagia) may also occur.

Other problems because of TBI may include hearing loss, tinnitus (ringing or buzzing in the ears), headaches, seizures, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, decreased smell or taste, and reduced strength and coordination in the body, arms, and legs. At Let's Talk Speech Therapy, our goal is to help them achieve the highest level of communicative participation in their daily living through intervention tailored for unique needs of individuals.

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