Connec-to-Talk :: Speech Pathology :: Occupational Therapy

During the first few months of life, children discover and practice new movements in preparation for exploring the world. They begin to develop the ability to move their mouths so that they can babble and say words during their first year. A child learns how to coordinate sucking, swallowing, and breathing to nurse and/or drink from a bottle. A child's nervous system starts the process and the child quickly learns how to move his mouth and how it feels to do so. The same is true for talking and moving parts of the body. Thus, a child’s motor and sensory centers begin to work together so that he can learn to drink, eat, move, and speak. However, for some children this process is not intuitive. They may have difficulty planning and executing the motor act in order to progress from cooing to babbling extensively or crawling to walking independently. For other children naturally occurring sensory input such as: from touch, taste, smell, hearing, and movement can be overwhelming. Children may respond to such sensations in an inappropriate manner.(e.g., a child who falls and doesn’t cry in response to pain or a child who often seems tired or lethargic) and may need a lot of movement or deep pressure to the muscles (e.g., bumping and crashing) to be able to meet developmental milestones of moving and talking in the first few years of life. This child may be described as overactive and may not be able organize himself to develop speech, language, and motor skills as expected.

At Connec-to-Talk we help young children learn how to do many things at once! Children learn to motor plan, move, interpret/respond to sensory information, and communicate successfully with others. When appropriate, we treat the whole child by using a Speech-Language and Occupational Therapy co-treatment model. We have found that for many young children who need both Speech-Language and Occupational Therapy, this method is much more efficient and effective than an individual therapeutic model. The co-treat is designed for children who have needs in the areas of speech and occupational therapy. Sensory activities and movement promote speech and language production. In addition this co-treatment model adds to the fun of the therapy session and helps to avoid therapy “burn-out” from children who already have busy schedules. By integrating the sensory and motor systems children demonstrate noticeable gains.