Services

 Assessments are essential in determining the specific areas of speech and language that are the most challenging for each individual child. Sarah provides speech and language evaluations that include formal and informal testing, a written report detailing the results, and recommendations based on the information. Following an evaluation, a call will be scheduled between Sarah and the parents/caregivers to review the results and discuss next steps. 

Sarah utilizes a play-based approach to enhance language development for toddlers and preschool age children. Sarah believes that parent/caregiver involvement is critical for this age group, and provides strategies to be incorporated in the home and school environments. 

Receptive Language refers to the skills involved in understanding language. This may include understanding linguistic concepts (e.g. prepositions, temporal language), following directions, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension.

Expressive Language is a child's ability to communicate their thoughts clearly. Children with expressive language difficulties may have challenges expressing themselves verbally and/or in writing.

Articulation is how we make speech sounds using our articulators (i.e. mouth, lips and tongue). Errors in articulation can impact a child’s ability to be understood. For example, a child may produce “wain” for “rain”. 

Social communication is how we use language to interact with others. Children who have difficulties with their social communication may have challenges staying on topic, taking turns during conversations, and perspective-taking. 

Language is embedded in nearly all academic areas including reading comprehension, writing, science, and social studies. Children who struggle to complete their homework can benefit from supports such as breaking down complex language, scaffolding information, and building upon their foundational knowledge. 

Writing is a complex process that can be difficult for many students. By teaching strategies from programs such as Unlocking Sentences and The Writing Revolution, Sarah provides explicit instruction on the various steps of the writing process including using appropriate sentence structures, brainstorming, organizing, drafting and editing. 

Sarah is trained in the Orton-Gillingham (OG) program, which is an explicit, direct, sequential, systematic, multi-sensory approach to reading instruction and intervention. This beneficial for any student having trouble with literacy skills including phonological awareness, sound-letter recognition, letter formation, sounding out words, recognizing "trick words", etc.