Speech and Language Services

Speech and Language Services

The Clinical Center offers assessment and treatment in the areas of speech and language disorders. Speech-language pathologists are professionals educated in the study of human communication, its development, and its disorders. By assessing the speech, language, cognitive-communication, swallowing skills, and hearing function and auditory processing skills of children and adults, the speech-language pathologist determines what communication problems exist and the best way to treat them.

The Communication Disorders and Sciences Program uses the Clinical Center as a training site for graduate students preparing to become professional speech-language pathologists. A variety of services are provided under the major categories of assessment and treatment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Assessment Services

Graduate students under the direct supervision of a licensed and certified supervising speech language pathologist and/or audiologist provide assessments of children and adults. Speech-language assessments are comprehensive in nature and are scheduled in 3-hour blocks over one to three evaluation sessions. We do not provide court-ordered assessments, nor do we provide services to any client involved in litigation or potential litigation or grievance (e.g., workers’ compensation cases, IEP appeals). Clients and their families will participate in an evaluation debrief to review the results and will receive a comprehensive written evaluation. 

Intervention Services

Treatment may vary depending on the nature and severity of the communicative disorder, the client’s age, and individual concerns. Therapy is provided for children and adults and may be scheduled for individual and/or group sessions (when available). Parents of children in therapy, as well as family members or caregivers of adult clients, receive information throughout the semester regarding the client’s progress and ways to facilitate communication skills outside the clinic. A consultation is scheduled during the final therapy session in each semester to provide recommendations to the clients, parents, and/or caregivers. 

Speech and language services provided may include the following communication aspects (call to confirm the specific treatments currently offered):

• Articulation – Speech sound production, speech intelligibility, dyspraxia of speech, and accent modification 
• Language – Receptive and expressive language skills in speaking, listening, reading, writing, and manual modalities. Aspects of language include phonology (sound use), morphology (use of word forms), syntax (grammatical rules), semantics (word use), and pragmatics (social skills) 
• Voice and Resonance – Quality, pitch, volume, respiration, timbre 
• Fluency – Stuttering, cluttering, speech rate, rhythm, and prosody 
• Swallowing – Non-instrumental assessment and treatment of oral and pharyngeal functions, oral function for feeding, and oral myofunction 
• Cognition – Attention, memory, sequencing, problem-solving, and executive functioning 
• Pragmatic/Social Language – Social language skills (e.g., eye gaze, bodily orientation, conversational speech for topic initiation and topic maintenance, appropriate behavior, turn-taking) 
• Augmentative and Alternative – Oral and manual techniques, assistive technologies