DOES MY CHILD NEED SERVICES?

  • Feeding Difficulty

    • arch their back or stiffen when feeding
    • cry or fuss when feeding
    • fall asleep when feeding
    • have problems breastfeeding
    • have trouble breathing while eating and drinking
    • refuse to eat or drink
    • eat only certain textures, such as soft food or crunchy food
    • take a long time to eat
    • pocket (which means to hold food in their mouth)
    • have problems chewing
    • cough or gag during meals
    • drool a lot or have liquid come out of their mouth or nose
    • get stuffy during meals
    • have a gurgly, hoarse, or breathy voice during or after meals
    • spit up or throw up a lot
    • are not gaining weight or growing

  • Child appears clumsy or uncoordinated

    • Difficulty climbing stairs without a rail past the age of three and descending past the age of five
    • Inability to coordinate both sides of the body and understand the concept of left and right
    • Balance issues
    • Troubles throwing and catching balls past the age of five
    • Trouble holding a pencil or spoon
    • Difficulty using a straw or spoon past the age of two
    • Trouble drawing, coloring or using scissors
    • Difficulty manipulating zippers, buttons and shoelaces to get dressed

  • Visual Processing

    • Difficulty understanding the concept of time
    • Frequently forgetting letters or numbers or reversing them when writing them down
    • Below average reading comprehension
    • Difficulty following moving objects with their eyes

  • Oral Motor or Oral Sensory Skills

    • Excessive drooling
    • Chewing food in the front of the mouth instead of using the molars
    • Difficulty drinking from a cup past the age of two
    • Inability or difficulty drinking from a straw past the age of two
    • Losing large amounts of liquid or food from their mouth after drinking, chewing or breastfeeding
    • The child has a cleft lip or palate
    • Tongue-Tie
    • Mouth Breathing
    • Bite that doesn’t fully close

  • Social Interaction Skills

    • Trouble engaging and interacting with family and peers
    • Difficulty adapting to new and unfamiliar environments
    • Delayed speech and language skills
    • Exclusively focusing on one subject of interest for a long time
    • Inability to cope with emotions and learning challenges
    • The child has difficulty communicating with others socially

  • Play Skills

    • Relying on adult guidance to initiate play
    • Short attention spans
    • Participating in repetitive play for long periods
    • Experiencing difficulties with imitative play
    • Refusing to play with peers or siblings

  • Focus

    • Fidgeting, squirming or getting up to wander around when asked or expected to sit still
    • Having emotional reactions to loud noises, specific movements and other sensory stimuli
    • Easily distracted by visual or auditory stimuli
    • Frequent and unpredictable meltdowns
    • Difficulty accepting or adjusting to change

  • Limited Language Skills

    • Does not smile or interact with others (birth and older)
    • Does not babble (4–6 months)
    • Makes only a few sounds or gestures, like reaching (7–9 months)
    • Does not understand what others say (10 months – 2 years)
    • Says only a few words (19 months – 2 years)
    • Does not put words together to make sentences (19 months – 3 years)
    • Speaks using words that are not easily understood by others (3–4 years)
    • Has trouble with early reading skills, like pretending to read or finding the front of a book (4–5 years)

  • Difficulty Pronouncing Sounds

    • The child’s speech is difficult to understand
    • The child is omitting syllables or sounds in words
    • Speech errors are noticed during conversation
    • Less than 50 percent intelligible to unfamiliar listeners by the age of 2
    • Unfamiliar listeners can understand less than 75 percent of what 3-year-old says
    • Inconsistent productions of the same target sounds or words

  • Stuttering

    • Repeats first sounds of words—”b-b-b-ball” for “ball”
    • Stretches sounds out—”f-f-f-f-farm” for “farm”
    • Significantly rapid speech rate
    • Repeating sounds, syllables, or words.
    • Difficulty starting a phrase or sentence
    • Broken words or emphasis on syllables or sounds in a word
    • Anxiety around the act of speaking itself
    • Tension and struggle of the face to create sounds
    • Increased stuttering when excited, tired, or facing stress
    • Using interjections such as “like” or “um” and pauses to link words together

  • Hearing Loss

    • By 12 months: not using gestures or acknowledging sounds, and won’t respond when you call their name.
    • By 18 months: has difficulty imitating sounds and following simple directions
    • By 2 years: only able to imitate speech or use words and sounds repeatedly, can’t use language spontaneously, and starts developing an unusual vocal tone.
    • Has difficulty paying attention
    • Asks to clarify instructions
    • Struggles to tell sounds apart
    • Listens to music or watches TV at abnormally loud volumes
    • Turns their head to face the direction of a sound
    • Talks in a very soft or very loud voice

If you have any of these concerns, request an evaluation with one of our Speech and Language Pathologists or Occupational Therapists today.

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