An IEP meeting that is facilitated by an impartial third party who helps the team resolve issues and make decisions about the child’s IEP with which all parties can agree.
The absence of healthy growth and development.
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education. FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children’s education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level. Students to whom the rights have transferred are “eligible students.”
Services provided to the family by qualified personnel to assist in understanding the needs of the child and helping the child’s development.
Teaching clients about FFCs teaches them to identify the object by its features (quality of an object), its function (purpose), or the class (category: food, clothes etc.). The goal of teaching FFCs is to help the child be able to participate in conversations. It allows them to talk about the object rather than just labeling it.
Difficulties swallowing liquids or food.
The growth, mental and physical problems that can be caused from a mother drinking alcohol while pregnant. It can be characterized by poor growth, decreased muscle tone, developmental delays and facial abnormalities.
Figurative language is a fun way to make the language we speak and write more exciting. You can use similes and metaphors to compare or describe things in an unusual way or you can use an idiom to say one thing but mean something else. Figurative also includes proverbs. These types of figurative language are often used in literature that your child will read and can be used by children to make their writing more exciting.
Sounds like “er,” “um,” and “you know” that are used within productions that can be characteristic of dysfluent speech or stuttering.
Final Consonant Deletion is a phonological process (phonological pattern) in which children omit the final consonants of words; for example ‘time’ pronounced as ‘tie’ or ‘make’ pronounced as ‘may’.
Use of small muscle groups for precise movements.
Representation of the alphabet by finger positions in order to spell out words or longer strings of language.
Therapy where skills such as speech, language and play are developed through floor-based play involving toys, games, activities, etc.
Smoothness of rhythm and rate of speech.
Deviations in continuity, smoothness, rhythm and/or effort with which sounds, words, sentences are spoken. See also Stuttering.
For hundreds of years people have been mystified by stuttering, the most well known of fluency disorders. There are many different therapy programs for stuttering. Our program teaches techniques which make it difficult to stutter if the techniques are used properly.
A type of aphasia in which the initiation and production of speech are typical, but the speaker has problems with semantics and comprehension.
A wireless frequency-modulated system that consists of an FM transmitter worn by the speaker and FM receiver worn by the listener. This type of system is like a small radio broadcast in which a signal is sent directly from the speaker to the listener, similar to a radio station transmitting a signal to an individual’s radio.
To continue with a demand placed on the client. Once a demand has been placed, it is imperative that the adult follows through to establish instructor control. Without consistent follow through, the child will learn that he/she can pick and choose which demands to follow.
Providing the child with a choice of two items/ object to verbally choose from, one of which is the target item/ object.
An ongoing (minute-by-minute; day-by-day) assessment, observation and review used to maximize the positive effect of client practice and aphasia treatment. Speech-language pathologists and practice coaches can use formative assessment to keep individual aphasia treatment programs fresh and effective, based on changes in a client’s performance.
Fragile X is a genetic condition. The gene that causes Fragile X is found at the tip of the X chromosome and shows as a fragile site – hence the name. Both men and women can be carriers of Fragile X and the gene may pass through several generations of carriers before a child affected by the syndrome is seen. Diagnosis is established by a DNA or Chromosome test but a Fragile X test must be specified.
Learning Difficulties – Fragile X is the most common inherited cause of learning disability. It affects boys and girls and it is found in all populations and ethnic groups. Learning disabilities vary from subtle educational delays to severe mental impairment. Boys who are affected almost always have some learning difficulty which can range from moderate to severe. Up to half of the girls have learning problems which are occasionally severe.
Behavioural Features – The behavioural features include inattentiveness, distractibility and poor impulse control often associated with hyperactivity. Shyness and social withdrawal are striking features in girls with Fragile X syndrome who may experience difficulty in making friendships and feel alienated from peers. Poor eye contact, difficulty in relating to other people, anxiety in social situations often leading to tantrums, insistence on familiar routines and hand flapping or hand biting may also occur.
Physical Features – Physical features may include a largish head and prominent ears but these may not be obvious in young children. Twenty percent of people with Fragile X have epilepsy.
Speech and Language Delay – Speech and language delay is almost always present but its severity varies considerably. There may be an entire absence of speech through to milder and more subtle communication difficulties. The characteristic speech pattern is fast and fluctuating. Generally the speech pattern has a jocular, running-on narrative style with frequent repetitions and swings of pitch described as “litany-like”. There is a tendency to stick to one theme in conversation (topic perseveration) and children may repeat words or phrases that are spoken to them (echolalia) or repeat many times words or phrases that they themselves say (verbal perseveration). There may also be a tendency to leave sentences incomplete.
Girls with Fragile X may also have a high-pitched voice with repetitions. Some children with Fragile X experience articulation difficulties which may be due to a large jaw and high arched palate. Hypotonia (low muscle tone) which occurs in some children with Fragile X may affect their muscles at the back of the mouth, the lips, nose and tongue which may in turn affect their ability to produce speech sounds.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects the rights of individuals with disabilities in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance, including federal funds. Section 504 provides that: “No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States . . . shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance…”
A small frenum. See Frenum.
Small cord of tissue extending from the floor of the mouth to the midline of the inferior surface of the tongue blade; important in speech because if too short it may restrict the elevation and extension of the tongue.
The number of vibrations per second of a sound. Frequency, expressed in Hertz (Hz), determines the pitch of sound.
A speech sound produced by a long interval of turbulence noise (ie: [s] and [f]). A fricative is a consonant made by forcing air though a narrow gap, generating a voiced or voiceless hissing sound. The fricatives in English are found at the beginnings of the following words: ‘sue’, ‘zoo’, ‘shoe’, ‘fee’, ‘vee’, ‘thigh’, ‘thy’ and ‘high’, and as the second consonant ‘zh’ in the word ‘measure’. The place-voice-manner (PVM) chart below shows the voiceless and voiced labiodental fricatives (/f/ and /v/), interdental fricatives (the ‘th’ sounds), alveolar fricatives ( /s/ and /z/) palatal fricatives ‘sh’, ‘zh’, ‘ch’ and dg’, and the voiceless glottal fricative (/h/).
When sounds that should be made at the back of the mouth are made at the front eg. ‘tea’ instead of ‘key’ and saying ‘tar’ instead of ‘car.’
The cause of impairment is not known. See Idiopathic.
Also Functional Behavioral Analysis. The analysis of a child’s inappropriate behavior and discovery of its cause. Includes documenting the antecedent (action prior to behavior), the behavior, and the consequence.
The appropriateness of which language is used within a context.
Difficulties which interfere with a personʼs ability to function in major life activities, including social situations, in school or employment and in the community. Functional impairment can be shown in the areas of bathing and grooming, dressing, social skills and peer relations, as well as feeding and taking medicine.
A MRI that looks at blood flow to specific parts of the brain while performing certain activities.
May also be a term used for “relational play” (seen between 9-24 months) denoting use of objects in play for the purposes for which they were intended, e.g., using simple objects correctly, combining related objects (man in car), and making objects do what they are made to do.
Skills that will be immediately useful to the child and will be used relatively frequently in the child’s typical environment.