SERVICES

Perth Hills Allied Health provides a mobile paediatric speech therapy service in the comfort of your own home.

Assessment

A flow chart showing a thought bubble that says "my child's speech doesn't sound quite right". Below this are the words "it could be due to one or all of the following areas". The areas are Language, which is split into Expressive (use of language) and Receptive (understanding of language); Fluency, which is stuttering; Speech Sounds (which is split up into speech sounds and articulation; Voice which is quality of voice production; and Social Skills which is split up into "engages in back and forth conversation" and "understanding and using non verbal communication.

“My child’s speech doesn’t sound quite right.”  If you are reading this page, this is likely to be a thought that you have had. To address this, we need to take a deeper look into how speech works and what could be contributing factors in your child’s speech difficulty. This flow chart shows you the broad areas of speech. A child’s speech may be impacted by just one of these areas, but more frequently we see that there are more than one area that contribute to a child’s speech difficulty. For this reason, speech pathologists conduct a comprehensive assessment at the beginning of services. Assessment can be done in a number of ways:

  1. Observation: The speech pathologist observes the child in the natural environment – this could be at school, at home, at the park or wherever the child is comfortable. During this assessment, the speech pathologist will be watching to see what words the child uses when playing, how the words are being said (fluency, voice, speech sounds) and the social skills being used in that situation.

  2. Play Assessment: The speech pathologist has a turn playing with the child. This may look fun (and it probably is), but the speech pathologist will be probing more complex language skills, trialling complex words or challenging the play situation.

  3. Formal Assessment: The speech pathologist may need to sit at the table for this type of assessment. In this, the child will be presented with some pictures and each one has a different purpose, however the overall purpose is to determine a child’s speech and language ability in comparison to those of the same age group.

  4. Consultation with Parents, teachers and other professionals: So many times, when the speech pathologist arrives at the session, the child doesn’t talk in the way that they usually do. For this reason, an important part of our assessment is to talk to the people that know the child best to find out about how the child communicates in 1:1 settings, in small groups, in big groups, with peers or with family members.

The combination of these methods of assessment is the beginning of developing a picture of your child’s communication strengths but more importantly where they are facing challenges. Once we have this knowledge, we can make a start on targeted speech therapy to relieve some of those challenges. Our aim is to keep parents posted on what our thoughts are as we go along, but the best way to give feedback on this, is to book a session without the child present so that all aspects can be discussed openly.

Individualised Therapy Services

Perth Hills Allied Health provides a mobile service that is tailored to your child’s requirements.  Sessions can be held at home, school or at day care.

We have experience in the following areas:

  • Articulation
  • Reading
  • Spelling
  • Comprehension
  • Following Directions
  • Sentence Construction
  • Speech Clarity
  • Stuttering
  • Retelling of Events
  • Early Language
  • Non-Verbal Communication
  • Shared Reading​
  • Global Developmental Delay
  • Autism Spectrum Delay
  • Literacy & AAC
  • PODD
  • High Tech. Devices
  • Mealtime Managment
  • Support for Self Managed NDIS Families​
  • Communication
  • Social Skills &
  • Relationships
  • Feeding & Mealtimes
  • School Readiness​