ATC Services

Aim to Communicate

SPEECH DISORDERS

Any condition that affects a person’s ability to produce sounds that create words. It is an umbrella term referring to any difficulty or combination of difficulties with perception, motor production, or phonological representation of speech sounds and speech segments—including phonotactic rules governing permissible speech sound sequences in a language. Speech sound disorders can be organic or functional in nature.

Articulation and phonological disorders

Articulation Disorders: Focus on errors (e.g., distortions and substitutions) in the production of individual speech sounds.

Phonological Disorders: Focus on predictable, rule-based errors (e.g., fronting, stopping, and final consonant deletion) that affect more than one sound.

stuttering

Stuttering refers to a speech disorder that interrupts the flow of speech. People who stutter can experience the following types of disruption:

Repetitions occur when people involuntarily repeat sounds, vowels, or words.
Blocks happen when people know what they want to say but have difficulty making the necessary speech sounds. Blocks may cause someone to feel as though their words are stuck.
Prolongations refer to the stretching or drawing out of particular sounds or words.

Developmental Language Disorders

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is diagnosed when a child’s language skills are persistently below the level expected for the child’s age. In DLD, language deficits occur in the absence of a known biomedical condition, such as autism spectrum disorder or Down syndrome, and interfere with the child’s ability to communicate effectively with other people.

Late Talkers

A late talker is generally defined as a toddler who is late to start using words despite what seems to be otherwise typical development. Late talking children are puzzling because they understand much of what is said to them, have good play skills, and interact well with their caregivers. Despite these skills, their vocabulary is limited compared to other children their age. (The Hanen Center

Parent/Teacher Counseling

We provide parent and/or teacher coaching and counselling such that we provide you with strategies on how to support children with communication difficulties. Having the right tools to support your children or students is key as it will allow us all to work together as a team to help children reach their full potentials.

Literacy

This is the ability to read and write. Children can have difficulties with any aspect of reading and writing, for example

Matching letters to their sounds
Long and short vowels
Blending words
Segmenting words
Understanding what they are reading
Inferencing
Paraphrasing/Summarizing
Spelling

AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS (ASD)

ASD is a developmental disorder. Individuals with ASD can have challenges with communication and social skills and often demonstrate repetitive behaviors. They may focus on one topic, like cars or a television show, or they may be attached to a certain object or activity. A person with autism may not like changes in their schedule or changes in the way they do something.

Need help?

ATC’s overall objective is to help children of all ages and cultures to reach their full communication, social and academic potential.