Brooks Rehabilitation | Outpatient – St. Johns

At Brooks Rehabilitation Outpatient – St. Johns, we understand that it can be difficult to know if your child needs speech therapy. If your child is diagnosed with autism, speech therapy is almost always recommended since many people with autism have difficulty with social communication. Even if your child is verbal and says a lot of words, they may need to work on communication skills like responding to questions, starting or ending conversations, changing conversation topics, using gestures like pointing, and understanding other people’s body language. Speech therapy is a key focus in early intervention for autistic children and it is important to start as early as possible to take advantage of the critical period in the brain for language development. Through speech therapy, your child will learn effective ways to communicate and gain independence and confidence. Signs that your child may need speech therapy include being very quiet, saying only a few words, or not speaking at all. To learn more, check out our comprehensive guide to everything you need to know about speech therapy.

At Brooks Rehabilitation Outpatient – St. Johns, our experienced speech therapists can help your child develop the skills needed for effective communication through a range of strategies. From using gestures, simple signs, verbal speech, and Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) to developing nonverbal skills, improving speech clarity, enhancing understanding and responding to questions, learning to discern facial expressions and emotions, recognizing body language, and assisting with feeding and swallowing challenges, our speech therapy program can help your child reach their communication goals.