Thanksgiving is quickly approaching! In the spirit of being thankful, Little Listeners wanted to express our appreciation for all of the other disciplines that help our kiddos! It takes a village sometimes, and we are so thankful our village consists of talented Audiologists, Speech-Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, Music Therapists, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, and Educational Therapists, just to name a few! With all of these professionals offering great services, it is sometimes hard to know where to start or what the differences are. The most common confusion we see at Little Listeners is the difference between Speech therapy, Sensory Integration therapy, and Auditory Processing therapy. Hopefully this blog will help answer some of these questions.
Speech-Language Pathologists primarily focus on expressive, receptive, and social language, swallowing, voice disorders, stuttering, and speech and language issues for those who have hearing impairments. This therapy might include activities focusing on certain sounds like ‘th’ or ‘r’, feeding therapy, or how to answer questions starting with where or when.
Sensory Integration therapy on the other hand tackles issues involving noise, tactile, taste, and visual sensitivities. During sensory integration therapy, a patient might play with Play-Doh, partake in a brushing activity, or exercise in a sensory room.
At Little Listeners, our Auditory Processing therapy helps the brain learn to listen. When a child can physically hear the stimulus around them, but cannot process it, that is when we see auditory processing difficulties. During our therapy, kiddos listen to tracks of words to practice their listening skills and do rhythm training through Interactive Metronome along with phonological synthesis and auditory memory training. It can be confusing to keep all these disciplines straight especially if your child is in multiple therapies at once.
Little Listeners is dedicated to accomplishing goals across intra-disciplinary lines. In the past, we have consulted with other professionals to ensure the greatest progress for our kiddos. From collaborating with Occupational Therapists to receiving additional ideas from Speech-Language Pathologists, we love learning about other disciplines and how they can contribute to our therapy methods here at Little Listeners. If you ever have any questions about what we do, please do not hesitate to ask. While we might not fully know what your child does in other therapies, we can answer almost any questions you have about what we do at Little Listeners.
On another note, this past October Little Listeners participated in the Dyslexia Dash! This race event raised awareness for Dyslexia and supporting programs in the greater Atlanta area. We were so happy to see some of our Little Listener’s friends, as well as meet new potential clients. Along with private schools, a variety of learning programs and other local therapy companies, we were able to provide information and education to help those with Dyslexia explore their options for intervention techniques. It was great to consult with these other professionals to explore different possibilities for those with Dyslexia. If you would like more information about the awesome people we met at the Dyslexia Dash, please let us know.
One final note: We are so excited to announce is that we are having another HearBuilder and IM Home competition! We had a similar competition over summer which was a great success! Many of our kiddos accomplished goals and improved tremendously in Super Right On’s and progressing through higher levels of the HearBuilder Program. This progress from increased usage at home also helped when the clients came in to the office to be reassessed. We are hoping this competition will help our friends stay motivated over the holiday break and keep working on their auditory processing skills! The winners of this competition will receive awesome gift cards and other great prizes. We will be sending more information and details as we get closer to the beginning of December, so stay tuned!
That’s all for now Little Listeners! We hope this blog finds everyone having a great school year and you are ready for some well needed holiday rest!
