Specialist Private Speech and Language Therapy across the lifespan
VISTA SLT offers a wide variety of Private Speech and Language Therapy services to address concerns affecting both adults and children. Below, you can find out about some of the conditions we can help with. We also support adults who have trouble swallowing, also called Dysphagia.
Please see our pricing page for details on our service costs. General information on the role of the Speech and Language Therapist is available here.
Adult Speech and Language Therapy Services
Aphasia
What is Aphasia?
Aphasia is a language disorder which affects a person’s ability to understand and use spoken or written language. Aphasia affects 1 in 3 people who have a stroke. It is also a common consequence of brain injury or infections such as Encephalitis or Hydrocephalus.
Primary Progressive Aphasia is a rare form of Dementia for which speech and language difficulty is commonly the first symptom.
Current evidence and clinical guidelines indicate that intensive intervention (i.e. 4-5 sessions per week) as soon as possible post stroke leads to the greatest gains in language skills.
Apraxia of Speech
What is Apraxia of Speech?
Apraxia is another common disorder seen following stroke or brain injury/infection. Apraxia is a complex motor speech disorder affecting signals from the brain to the speech muscles (although there is no paralysis or weakness of these muscles). This leads to difficulty coordinating the muscle movements required to speak clearly and consistently.
People with Apraxia of Speech may be unable to initiate speech, appear to be searching for the correct mouth/tongue movements to produce sounds or produce a word or phrase clearly on one occasion but not on another.
Individuals with Apraxia often feel very frustrated by the inconsistency in their speech. They also find that their difficulties worsen when feeling under pressure or rushed.
Dysarthria
What is Dysarthria?
Dysarthria is another example of a motor speech disorder. It happens when the muscles needed for speaking are weak or paralysed. People with this condition may have difficulty being understood when they talk. Speech can sound slow, slurred, monotonous or strained.
Dysarthria, Aphasia, and Speech Apraxia can often be helped with therapy and learning new ways to communicate.
Dysarthria, Aphasia and Apraxia of Speech can often be helped with therapy and learning new ways to communicate.
Speech and Language Therapy intervention for these conditions often involves exploration of communication aids (e.g. paper charts or digital aids such as therapy apps) to help the person to express themselves and communicate their needs to others.
Voice disorders
What are voice disorders?
People with voice disorders may present with a hoarse, strained, weak or breathy voice. These disorders can also change your tone of voice and make speaking or swallowing uncomfortable.
Voice disorders can be caused by damage to the vocal cords such as vocal cord palsy/paralysis or trauma, or a neurological condition such as Parkinson’s.
Our knowledge about the lasting effects of COVID-19 is still growing. However, many people with long COVID say that their voice is different. This is often due to trouble controlling their breathing while talking or related to damaged to the vocal cords after being on a ventilator for a long time.
Stammering in adults
What is stammering?
Stammering affects the fluency of speech. Someone who stammers might say parts of words over and over, stretch out sounds, or get be unable to produce sound at all.
Stammering usually begins in childhood. It can also happen after a brain injury or stroke, or after severe emotional stress/trauma.
More men stammer than women. Currently, researchers don’t know why this is the case. People who stammer frequently feel anxious about talking to others.
Cognitive Communication Disorder
What is a Cognitive Communication Disorder?
Cognitive Communication Disorder (CCD) is a complex and wide ranging disorder, most commonly seen as a result of brain injury or stroke. Many people with long COVID report symptoms of Cognitive Communication Disorder.
People with CCD may have difficulty remembering information or conversations. They may struggle with normal social behaviours like waiting for their turn, making eye contact and using facial expression. Disinhibition can be common in CCD, leading to ‘unfiltered’ speech. CCD can also affect a person’s reading and writing skills.
Speech and Language Therapy for Cognitive Communication Disorder commonly includes re-education around conversation rules, strategies to support memory and the use of tools to assist with reading/writing and understanding.
Children’s Speech and Language Therapy services
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)
What is DLD?
Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a condition where children have long-term challenges talking and/or understanding words.
Children with DLD may have lots of ideas but find it hard to put their ideas into words and understand what other people say to them. Their difficulties can be hard to spot and may be ‘hidden’ for a long time.
A child can be diagnosed with DLD if their challenges with talking and/or understanding words:
- have a big impact on how well they do at school, or in everyday life;
- are not caused by another condition, such as hearing impairment or autism; and
- are not likely to get better by age five – their challenges are likely to be life-long.
Most children with DLD will need support and changes to the environment at school to help them. Some people with DLD continue to need support when they are adults. Please click here for further information.
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS, or Verbal Dyspraxia)
What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech?
Similarly to Apraxia in adulthood, children with CAS have difficulty forming and co-ordinating the movements needed to make clear speech.
Every child with CAS is unique and symptoms will vary dependent on the severity of the condition. Children with CAS may:
- Struggle to pronounce words correctly (effortful speech).
- Be able to say a word correctly sometimes but not others.
- Have more difficulty saying the beginning of words.
- Have more difficulty saying longer words than shorter words.
- Be aware of their mistakes but often unable to correct them.
- Speak more slowly.
- Be better at ‘automatic’ speech tasks such as counting and singing.
- Have a limited range of consonant and vowel sounds.
Some children with CAS may benefit from communication aids (AAC) to support them to communicate. Click here for more information on CAS.
Autism
What is Autism?
Autism is a disorder which affects a person’s ability to communicate and relate to other people. It commonly starts in childhood.
Autism is a spectrum disorder meaning that the symptoms are varied in terms of severity.
Common communication difficulties for children with Autism include:
- not responding to their name
- avoiding eye contact
- not smiling when you smile at them
- getting very upset on hearing a specific sound or being asked to do something
- not talking as much as other children
- not doing as much pretend play
- repeating the same phrases
- not seeming to understand what others are thinking or feeling
- unusual speech, such as repeating phrases and talking ‘at’ others
- finding it hard to make friends or preferring to be on their own
- taking things very literally – for example, they may not understand phrases like “break a leg”
- finding it hard to say how they feel
Autism is a lifelong developmental disability. Speech and Language Therapists can help people with autism to improve their verbal, non-verbal (body language, facial expressions etc) and social communication. Click here for further information.
Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC)
What is AAC?
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is a range of strategies and tools to help people who struggle with speech. Augmentative means to add to a child’s speech. Alternative means to be used instead of speech.
AAC may include simple letter or picture boards or sophisticated computer-based systems. AAC helps the user to communicate as effectively as possible, in as many situations as possible.
Children with a range of speech and language difficulties might benefit from AAC to reduce frustration or feelings of pressure when communicating with others. Many adults with communication difficulties also benefit from AAC. Click here for further information.
Stammering in children
What is stammering?
Similarly to stammering in adults, childhood stammering affects the fluency of speech.
Speech and language development is a complex process that involves communication between different areas of the brain, and between the brain and the muscles responsible for breathing and speaking.
Due to the complexity of this process, a child who stammers might have difficulty coordinating the complex processes to speak clearly. This can cause repetitions and stoppages, particularly when the child has lots to say, is excited, or feels under pressure.
Studies suggest around 1 in 12 young children go through a phase of stammering. Around 2 in 3 children who stammer will go on to speak fluently, although it is difficult to predict when this will happen from one child to another.
Speech and Language Therapy for children who stammer may involve:
- creating an environment where your child feels more relaxed and confident about talking
- strategies to increase fluency and develop communication skills
- working on feelings associated with stammering, such as fear and anxiety
Click here for more information.
Phonological Awareness
What is Phonological Awareness?
Phonological awareness is a set of skills that children typically develop in the preschool years to prepare them to learn to read and write.
When developing phonological awareness, children begin to understand how words are made up of different sounds and how they can be changed to make different words.
During this phase, children become aware of the phonology in our language, meaning how different letters and sounds create the words that we speak, read, and write.
Children who have speech and language difficulties are at a higher risk of reading problems later on. Therefore, working on phonological awareness in children with speech delay can be extremely helpful for learning to read.
Click here for more detail.
We understand that your child may be experiencing speech and language difficulties without a formal ‘diagnosis’. You are the expert in what your child needs.
Our VISTA SLT Private Speech Therapy team are keen to reassure you that we are on hand to support with any worries you have about your child’s speech and language development.
Speech and Language UK offers a progress checker tool to see how your child’s skills match up with typical milestones for their age. Please note this does not replace professional assessment and guidance.