Welcome to the Speech & Language Department of Clarity!

The speech department consists of master-level speech-language therapists and support staff. In addition, Clarity has a therapist that is working toward her certification in auditory verbal therapy. Our staff therapists primarily focus on the diagnostic assessment, consultation and treatment of various speech and/or language issues for toddlers to adults*.

Common referral concerns include:

• ArticulationAn articulation disorder is a speech disorder were a person has difficulties with the way sounds are formed and strung together usually characterized by substituting one sound for another (wabbit for rabbit) omitting a sound (ca- for cat) or distorting a sound (shlip for sip).
• Oral MotorThe ability to use the oral mechanism for functional speech or feeding, including chewing, blowing, or making specific sounds./Motor Speech Concerns (Childhood Apraxia of Speech)
• LanguageA language disorder when they have trouble understanding others (receptive language) and/or sharing thoughts, ideas and feelings completely (expressive language).
• PhonologyA phonological disorder is a language based speech disorder. A child with a phonological disorder demonstrates difficulty in learning and organizing sounds needed for speech production or misrepresents sounds needed for spelling and reading.
• Hearing Loss / DeafnessWhen a person can not hear as well as others. It can be present at birth (congenital), or become evident later in life (acquired).
• Auditory Processing / Central Auditory ProcessingA person’s ability to identify, interpret, and attach meaning to sound. It is considered a disorder when a person shows an inability to differentiate, recognize, or understand sounds usually in people with normal hearing and intelligence
• Fluency (stuttering)A person has a fluency disorder when speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases, and involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the stutterer is unable to produce sounds.
• Voice concerns A person with a voice disorder has problems involving abnormal pitch, loudness, or quality of the sounds produced by the larynx (the voice box).
• Cleft PalateA person with a cleft palate often experiences resonance disorders or VPI (velopharyngeal incompetence). This is evident when the quality of speech is too nasal or excessive air escapes during speech.
• Resonance The quality of the voice that is determined sound vibrating in the oral, nasal, and pharyngeal areas during speech. Abnormal resonance can occur if there is obstruction in one of these areas. concerns.

*For adult clients, we narrow the scope of our services on a case by case situation.