Our Services - Perfect Speech Pathology

Speech Sounds

Speech sound production refers to how your child makes the sounds necessary in individual words, sentences and within conversations. Some sounds take time to master, others come along easily and quickly.

When a child is unable to articulate their sounds correctly, others will have difficulties understanding what they are saying leading to frustration for both the child and the listener. If you are unsure as to whether your child’s articulation errors are expected for their age, please contact us!

Refers to the clarity of speech sound production.

It is hard to know what’s cute, or what’s a problem.

Yes its true, children are difficult to understand. If a child has any of the following difficulties, it might be worth checking in:
A child over the age of 4 is still difficult to understand
Unusual sound swaps – ‘wed’ for ‘red’ can be normal for children under 5 but ‘ped’ for ‘red’ might not be
Chopping the first sound off words – ‘ig’ for ‘pig’
A slushy sounding lisp
Has trouble with longer, multisyllabic words
Teacher has reported that they are difficult to understand

Expressive Language

Expressive Language is one part of language we need to effectively communicate. It refers to a person’s ability to use language to express their ideas clearly and succinctly. It involves different aspects such as:

Vocabulary (do they know what word to use)
Sentence structure (can they put the sentence together appropriately)
Completing writing tasks

The ability to express yourself!

Nothing frustrates a child more than not being able to express their wants and needs, and for any toddler, there are a lot of wants and needs!

We can help:

Extend your child’s vocabulary
Putting the right word in the right spot when talking
Reduce the need for “interpretation”
Reduce tantrums by expressing needs and wants
Teaching emotional language to help deal with those big feelings

Receptive Language

Simply put, its how we understand what is said to us.

Understanding jokes and sarcasm, following instructions and avoiding the complications of misunderstandings.

A child who is reluctant to follow routine, looks like they are not listening, is doing the cartwheel at the back of the daycare “storytime” photo or older children who are reluctant to start or complete school tasks and assessments may have hidden receptive language difficulties.

Receptive language is one part of language that we need to effectively communicate. It refers to a person’s ability to understand what is said to them. It involves aspects such as:

Following familiar and unfamiliar instructions
Understanding a story being read/told to them
Understanding jokes or sayings
Responding appropriately to others in conversation

Social Skills

Playing with others can be stressful and little emotions can become too big to handle.

Pragmatics often refer to how language is used and understood in social settings. Some can misinterpret what others are saying, misread body language or say things that may cause offence to others. It is an important skill for interacting with family members, peers and work colleagues.

Come and speak to us to identify whether your child’s social skills are age appropriate or not.

We can help those who:

Struggle with their emotions
Have big outbursts
Have difficulties understanding why others are not playing fair
Reacting with physical aggression
Have difficulties understanding others perspectives
How to have a conversation (turn taking, listening to others, showing interest in their ideas)
Being stubborn – unwilling to move on from their own idea

Fluency (Stuttering)

Often refers to a stutter.

Stuttering behaviour is most common around the age of 2-3, but is best seen to right away. Stutters can be hereditary, or they can just appear seemingly random.

Stuttering can look like:

Repetitions of sounds or whole words e.g. “a-a-a-animals”, “My my my my dinosaur” or “I want I want I want another turn”
Getting “stuck” on a sound, either by freezing without any noise or stretching that sound out e.g.” mmmmmmmmmum!”
Other involuntary movements e.g. excessive blinking or shrugging

Primary & High School

We know the demands a school aged student faces.

Difficulties can make a student feel like school work is unachievable. We can help restore a student’s self-belief and give them the confidence to tackle their learning.

We can help with:

Reading difficulties

Decoding (sounding out words)
Inferencing (understanding hidden meanings, finding the main idea, summarising)

Writing difficulties

Encoding (spelling words)
Editing skills (punctuation, capitalisation)
Sentence structure
Using appropriate vocabulary
Text structure (essays, story writing)
Answering exam questions succinctly and effectively

Study skills/assessments

Note taking
Identifying the key words in questions
Unpacking assessment tasks and identifying steps needed to complete task