Our Methods

Oral Motor Analysis & Remediation

• PROMPT© Technique (Prompts for Restructuring Oral Motor Targets)

• Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC)

• Talk Tools®

• Beckman Oral Motor Program

• Neurodevelopmental Treatment (NDT)

​

Additional Methods

• Myofunctional therapies, including the Simons Says THUMBS UP! and TONGUE THRUST interventions

• Rhythmic Entrainment Intervention (REI)

• The Listening Program (TLP)

• Lee Silverman Voice Treatment Program

• Alert Program

• Hanen Program®

• Brain Gym®

• Interactive Metronome®

• Sign With Your Baby®

• Infant Massage

• Pre-Feeding and G-Tube Transition to Oral Feeding

• Lindamood-Bell® Programs

• Lidcombe Program for Fluency

• Fluency Shaping

• Auditory Processing Management

• Low-Tech Augmentative Communication

• Nonviolent Crisis Intervention

​

PROMPT© Technique (Prompts for Restructuring Oral Motor Targets)

• PROMPT© is a dynamic tactile method of treatment for motor speech disorders that is based on touch pressure, kinesthetic and proprioceptive cues. It helps to reshape individual and connected articulatory phonemes and sequences (coarticulation). The clinician helps to manually guide articulators to produce specific sounds or words that seem to be problematic. In this approach, the clinician uses his/her hands to cue and stimulate articulatory movement while helping the child to limit unnecessary movements.
  More...

​

DTTC (Dynamic Temporal & Tactile Cueing) for Childhood Apraxia of Speech

• DTTC is a motor-based approach, meaning that it is designed to improve the brain’s ability to plan and program movements for speech, which most experts believe is the underlying cause of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). The goals of DTTC is to improve the efficiency of neural processing for the development and refinement of movements.

​

Talk Tools®

• Talk Tools are comprehensive muscle-based programs to address phonation, resonation, articulation and feeding skills through the use of horns, bubbles, straws and other oral-motor products. This program (these products) are effective program in the remediation of articulation disorders; persistent /s/, /r/, and /l/ disorders in children and adults, articulation disorders secondary to low tone/muscle weakness; articulation disorders secondary to high tone; dysarthria; apraxia; and tongue thrust.

​

Beckman Oral Motor Program

• These specific assessment and interventions provide assisted movement to activate muscle contraction and provide movement against resistance to build strength. The focus of these interventions is to increase functional response to pressure and movement, range, strength, variety and control of movement for the lips, cheeks, jaw and tongue. Because the components of movement are functional, not age specific, the protocol is useful with a wide range of ages (birth to geriatric) and diagnostic categories.

​

Neurodevelopmental Treatment (NDT)

• NDT is an advanced therapeutic approach practiced by experienced Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and Speech - Language Pathologists working with people who have central nervous system insults that create difficulties in controlling movement. Therapists using NDT treatment have completed advanced training in NDT and work closely with individuals with neurological challenges (e.g. cerebral palsy, stroke, head injury), helping them to become as independent as possible. Individuals who have minimal to severe motor difficulties can benefit from the NDT approach.
  More...

​

Rhythmic Entrainment Intervention (REI)

• REI is a MusicMedicine therapy program using auditory rhythmic stimulation (usually in the form of percussion rhythms) to stimulate the central nervous system and improve brain function. The REI program consists of two custom-made audio CDs designed to address the specific behavioral and cognitive symptoms of people with a variety of neurological disorders including people with AD/HD, autism, learning disabilities, and others. This program is designed to faciliate long-term cognitive and behavioral improvement in the listener.
   

​

The Listening Program (TLP)

• The Listening Program’s psychoacoustically modified music and patent-pending production techniques are designed to stimulate, or “exercise” the different functions of the auditory processing system. This enables the brain to better receive, process, store and utilize the valuable information provided through the varied soundscapes in our lives such as music, language and our environment. TLP is designed to address various zones, systematically providing auditory stimulation that, when customized for listeners by TLP Providers, can help improve their long-term ability to function in various ways, improving motor skills, organizational skills and memory, vocal abilities, creativity and even energy in the listener.

• Because every listener is unique, TLP is customized for each person, yet it remains remarkably affordable. TLP relies on qualified, trained providers to administer the TLP method, such as those on staff with SPEECH PATHways.
  More about TLP...
  Try the Listening Screening Tool...

​

Lee Silverman Voice Treatment Program (LSVT)

• LSVT® is a proven effective speech treatment program that restores oral communication in individuals with Parkinson disease (PD) beyond what current pharmacological and surgical interventions can offer. LSVT® has been scientifically studied over 15 years with 5 million dollars in NIH funding and is considered the first speech treatment with Level I evidence for individuals with PD. Observations by patients, family members and professionals confirm that patients are more effective and emotionally engaged communicators after LSVT.

• The LSVT Program requires 1 month of intensive therapy (4 times per week for 4 weeks) and then continued homework (5-10 minutes) on a daily basis to keep the voice alive. The approach centers on a very specific therapeutic target: increased vocal loudness. This key target acts as a "trigger" to increase effort and coordination across the speech production system. Recently, LSVT has been successfully applied to individuals with multiple sclerosis, stroke, ataxic dysarthria, aging voice, vocal fold paralysis and children with cerebral palsy and Down syndrome.

• SPEECH PATHways is eager to apply the principals of LSVT to treating children with a variety of sensory-motor planning deficits, including Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome and Apraxia. In addition, SPEECH PATHways is expanding our comprehensive speech and language program to serve adults diagnosed with Parkinson Disease, offering two trained and certified LSVT therapists on staff.
  More...

​

Alert Program

• The Alert Program is an innovative program that supports children, teachers, parents, and therapists to choose appropriate strategies to change or maintain states of alertness. Students learn what they can do before a spelling test or homework time to attain an optimal state of alertness for their tasks. Teachers learn what they can do after lunch, when their adult nervous systems are in a low alert state and their students are in a high alert state. Parents learn what they can do to help their child's nervous system change from a high alert state to a more appropriate low state at bedtime.  The Alert Program is offered by several of our speech-language pathologists and our Sensory Integation Certified Occupational Therapist.  Individual and group programs offered.
  More...

​

Hanen Program®

• Hanen is a family-focused program for parents of children who are delayed in their language development; it is recommended for parents with children with a range of communication abilities. Hanen is suitable for parents of children who are not yet communicating or are communicating non-verbally — with gestures and sounds, for example — and extends to those who are beginning to use single words and/or two and three word combinations.
  More...

​

Brain Gym®

• Successful brain function requires efficient connections across the neural pathways of the brain. Brain Gym activities can improve your child's ability to focus, process, and succeed at home and school. Benefits include improvements in learning, vision, expression, memory, and movement abilities, in young people as well as adults. Staff member Debi Betances is an enthusiastic and encouraging instructor of Brain Gym, yoga, and drama.
  More...

​

Interactive Metronome®

• A cutting-edge neurological assessment and treatment tool, Interactive Metronome has long been known to redefine traditional expectations for children with Sensory Integration Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Cerebral Palsy, non-verbal Learning Disorder, and ADD/ADHD. Through continued development, IM has been shown to enhance traditional therapy approaches and achieving measurably improved outcomes for a wide range of patients, improving attention and concentration, motor planning and sequencing, language processing, behavior (aggression and impulsivity), balance and gait, endurance, strength, motor skills, and coordination.
  Download Flyer...
  More...

​

Sign With Your Baby®

• This program helps establish two-way communication between hearing parents and their hearing children through the use of American Sign Language signs.
  More...

​

Infant Massage

• Infant massage helps to promote the parent-infant bonding process into loving and positive relationships. Infant massage further helps improve immune systems, stimulate relaxation, promotes better sleeping patterns, decrease stress responses during painful health procedures like immunizations. Infant massage can also help to reduce colic, congestion and teething.

​

Pre-Feeding and G-Tube Transition to Oral Feeding

• These are comprehensive oral-motor, behavioral and sensory-motor-based programs for the transition from non-oral (ex: G-tube) feeding to oral feeding. Treatment is offered in individual and peer-group settings. SPEECH PATHways offers treatment in this area as well as for dysphagia (swallowing disorder).
  More about transition to Oral Feeding...
  More about Dysphagia...

​

Lindamood-Bell® Programs

• Students can successfully learn content when they can read and comprehend. The goal of Lindamood-Bell Programs is to develop these abilities to a point that students become independent and self-correcting. The programs are internationally recognized as one of the most effective methods for developing literacy skills and addressing a wide range of learning needs.
  More...

​

Lidcombe Program for Fluency

• The Lidcombe Program for Early Stuttering Intervention was designed in the mid-1980s by Professor Mark Onslow and colleagues at the University of Sydney, Australian Stuttering Research Centre, as a behavioral intervention for stuttering in preschool. Scientifically researched in Australia, Canada and the UK, studies of the program have shown that stuttering can be maintained at near zero following treatment. The Lidcombe Program is carried out in a partnership between the parent and a Lidcombe-trained speech-language pathologist.  The clinician teaches the parent(s) to administer appropriate verbal contingencies for fluency and stuttering to their children in their everyday speaking environment.
  More...

​

Fluency Shaping

• Fluency shaping therapy is based on behavioral/operant conditioning principles. Fluency is first established in a controlled stimulus situation and then is reinforced and gradually modified to approximate normal conversational speech in the therapy room. Speech is then transferred to other situations either directly or with the help of stuttering modification techniques. Such techniques involve a more comprehensive or holistic approach in which the individual and characteristics of the dysfluency are considered when planning treatment along with possible contributing factors to dysfluency. These may include physiological, cognitive, and social/emotional processes which may underlie the symptoms. When these "processes" are modified/strengthened then fluency may happen.
  More...

​

Auditory Processing Management

• Comprehensive treatments are used to help improve auditory processing skills. Auditory trainers are electronic devices that let a person focus attention on a speaker and reduce the interference of background noise. They are often used in classrooms, where the teacher wears a microphone to transmit sound and the child wears a headset to receive the sound. Children who wear hearing aids can use them in addition to the auditory trainer. Therapists may help manage processing by considering or suggesting environmental modifications (such as classroom acoustics, placement, and seating), exercises to improve language-building skills, or auditory memory enhancement (reducing detailed information to more basic representations)

​

Nonviolent Crisis Intervention

• Nonviolent Crisis Intervention training was developed during the 1970s as an innovative, holistic system for defusing escalating behavior and safely managing physically aggressive behavior. The combination of understanding effective communication and human physiology during aggressive moments, along with the core philosophy of maintaining care, welfare, safety and security provided a balance in behavior management that was quickly adapted and successfully applied in many human service fields.
  More...