Speech and Language therapy is critical in early childhood development. Speech helps the child to express their wants and needs. Speech therapy helps to assist with a child’s ability to interpret his or her environment and helps a child play and work more effectively with others. Speech therapy helps children presenting with a speech and language delay to improve articulation of words and sentences. Speech and language pathologists (SLPs) work with children to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive communication, and swallowing disorders in children. The Speech Department is an integral component of the Just Kids interdisciplinary team. Speech and language pathologists work closely with the classroom teachers to ensure skill development is reinforced in the classroom with appropriate learning strategies. Speech therapists view parents as an extremely critical part of their child’s speech therapy program.

Both individual and group services are delivered as mandated by the child’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP). These services include the remediation of articulation/phonology, receptive and expressive language, auditory processing, voice, fluency, concerns, and aural rehabilitation. The department focuses on providing each student with a communication system that enables the student a level of independence by effectively improving functional communication.

The Speech and Language department staff are licensed by the New York State Office of the Professions and certified and trained in PROMPT therapy, PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System),and high and low tech devices. Ongoing professional development is a cornerstone of the Speech and Language department.