The Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West provides school-based speech therapy services to local school districts. Speech therapists work with children who have communication problems that adversely affect their education performance in classroom activities, social interaction, literacy and learning. In the school setting speech and language therapists assist in prevention, identification, assessment, evaluation, direct therapy, consultation and monitoring of speech and language disorders. Speech and language disorders in the school may stand alone as the only disorder or may be associated with hearing loss, cleft palate, cerebral palsy and other motor problems, autism, developmental delays, traumatic brain injuries and other problems. Many speech/language goals combine communication with academic and social goals, integrate classroom objectives, help students understand and use basic language concepts, support reading and writing and increase students’ understanding of texts and lessons.
In the school setting speech and language therapists are specialists in the areas of language, voice, fluency or stuttering, augmentative communication and articulation. The most common areas of therapy in the school setting are articulation and language. An articulation disorder involves substituting one sound for another (wabbit/rabbit), omitting a sound (i-cream/ice cream) or distorting a sound (thee/see). A language disability is defined as: slow development of vocabulary, concepts or grammar; inability to use different communication styles for different situations; and poor building blocks of understanding/expressing ideas, social development, learning, reading and writing. Voice and fluency disorders are complex issues that must affect the child’s ability to communicate in order to receive services in the school setting.
For more information, please click our fee schedules below for the current school year: