Speech and Language Therapy
We work with you to overcome speech, language, and cognition concerns, as well as difficulty swallowing, so you can live the life you want and enjoy the activities you love.
Speech and Language Pathologists (SLP) provide advocacy, support, and therapeutic services for individuals with communication and swallowing disorders. Our specially trained therapists address various neurological and physical diagnoses, such as brain injury, spinal cord injury, stroke, neuromuscular diseases, neurological diseases, autism, dysphagia (swallowing difficulty), aphasia (difficulty communicating), or developmental disability.
Speech and Language Therapy
Our speech and language pathology team takes a holistic but individualized approach to every patient. Our speech therapy team will use special assessments and clinical knowledge to diagnose and treat speech, language, communication, and swallowing disorders in children and adults. Like every form of rehabilitative care we provide, our team is focused on achieving personal goals to assist with maintaining and increasing your overall quality of life.
Conditions we treat include:
Language
- Aphasia
- Expressive language disorders
- Receptive language disorders
Speech
- Motor speech disorders
- Apraxia
- Dysarthria
- Fluency disorders
- Speech disorders
- Articulation impairments
Cognition
- Cognitive Retraining
- Attention
- Executive Functioning
- Memory
- Problem-solving
- Visuospatial skills
- Cognitive treatment following COVID
Voice
- Vocal pathologies
- Nodules
- Polyps
- Granulomas
- Dysphonia (voice disorders)
- Transgender voice retraining
- LSVT LOUD program for patients with parkinsons
Swallowing
- Head and neck cancer related swallowing difficulty
- Modified barium swallows
- Dysphagia (swallowing disorders)-clinical swallowing evaluation and dysphagia treatment
- Respiratory strength training
- GERD
Specialized Programs and Treatments
While a person does not need to change their voice according to their gender identity, many patients wish to modify their voice, and we are here to help! We work with transgender and non-binary patients around ages 12 and up to modify their voices to their individual goals. Our goal is to support you in your voice journey and ensure you feel comfortable with your voice.
Gender-Affirming Treatment Options for Voice
- Hormone replacement therapy
- Testosterone helps deepen voice by thickening vocal folds. However, this treatment is not reversible and comes with other side effects.
- Testosterone blockers taken during puberty can help prevent voice masculinization during puberty.
- Estrogen does not affect the voice.
- Voice feminization and voice masculinization
- Targets pitch, resonance, intonation, articulation, and non-verbal characteristics.
- Typically a patient will work with a speech-language pathologist (SLP) for ~10 weeks, plus an extensive home program, and will then continue to develop skills independently.
- Surgical Options for voice feminization
- This treatment involves a laser reduction glottoplasty, Cricothyroid approximation, or anterior glottal web formation. However, there are surgical risks as vocal folds are delicate.
- Often changes the pitch but not other vocal qualities, so many elect to pursue voice therapy as well.
LSVT Loud is a specialized program for people with Parkinson’s disease that addresses voice volume and quality, as well as difficulties swallowing and changes in speech.
Visi-Pitch is a tool that helps us accurately capture and playback acoustic signals while providing real-time auditory and visual biofeedback during therapy sessions. Our therapists use the data captured by this tool to document client progress.
The real-time software provides a fun and interactive way to motivate and stimulate clients during speech therapy tasks.
Prior to treatment for Head and Neck Cancers, our speech and language pathologists partner with doctors from the Middlesex Health Cancer Center to perform swallowing evaluations and educate patients on how their swallow and voice can be affected. Following treatment, our providers work with patients to maximize function.
An MBS is used as an instrumental assessment to help assess swallowing using video fluoroscopy to further investigate the swallowing function and diagnosis deficits.
Our speech and language pathologists treat infants, toddlers, and adolescents with the following:
- Apraxia of Speech
- Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Articulation
- Augmentative and alternative communication needs
- Expressive and Receptive Language Impairments
- Traumatic Brain Injury
- Voice Disorders
- Speech production disorders
- Stuttering
- Swallowing disorders
Our Mayer Center pediatric Feeding team, consisting of a speech and language pathologist as well as an occupational therapist, diagnoses, and treats feeding and swallowing disorders within the pediatric population. In addition, our team works to identify dysphagia and sensory deficits, which may negatively impact overall feeding. Our goal is for you and your child to feel supported as you learn new strategies and strengthening exercises to improve safe eating and drinking habits.