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About Sweet Speech Therapy
Sweet Speech provides speech and feeding therapy in-home by an expert Speech Pathologist.
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Founding Story
Elisabeth is a California licensed and ASHA certified Speech-Language Pathologist. A native northern Californian, Elisabeth began her undergraduate degree at KU, a top program for speech and hearing science. Elisabeth completed her Master’s degree at Midwestern University. Elisabeth has worked in a variety of settings, including: children’s hospital, private
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3301 Clay Street, CA, 94123
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415-568-5489
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info@sweetspeechtherapy.com
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Frequently Asked Questions
The simple answer is: whenever you’re ready. You are your child’s greatest advocate and protector. It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers, or aren’t able to perfectly explain everything. You can still educate those around you about your child’s autism when you have the energy to do so. Check out our complete guide for examples and tips.
Teach and practice calming strategies with your child. Helping your child learn how to manage their emotions and reactions is very important. Teach your child different ways they can calm down and relax, such as:
- Deep breathing, counting to 10, using sensory toys (like squishy balls or putty), going for a walk, listening to music
- Build "relaxation time" into their normal routines and schedules
- Practice these when your child is happy and calm so that later, when they’re highly stressed, they can access these skills
For more expert tips, check out our meltdowns guide.
Speech therapy is almost always recommended for autistic children since many people with autism have difficulty with social communication. Even if a child is very verbal and says a lot of words, they might need to work on communication skills like:
- responding to questions
- starting or ending conversation
- changing conversation topics
- using gestures like pointing
- understanding other people's body language
Speech therapy is a big focus in early intervention for autistic children and is usually the starting place for recently diagnosed kids. There is a critical period in the brain for language development and so, it's really important to teach language and communication skills as early as possible, especially if there are any delays in that area. Your child will learn effective ways to communicate which will help them grow into more independent and confident individuals.
It might be obvious when a child struggles with speaking —they are very quiet, say only a few words, or don't speak at all.
Spot speech and language delays like a doctor here.
The goal of speech therapy is to help your child communicate effectively with other people across all environments. This may take the form of using gestures, simple signs, verbal speech, and Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).
Some other common things speech therapists can help with:
- Nonverbal skills, such as signs or gestures
- Forming speech in a clearer way
- Communicating thoughts and feelings clearly
- Understanding and responding to questions
- Discerning facial expressions and their corresponding emotions
- Noticing and understanding body language
- Feeding and swallowing
- Stuttering
Even if a provider offers parent training, it may look different from one provider to another. For example, an in-home provider might conduct a parent training session directly following a therapy session with your child to help explain what they’ve been working on with your child. At larger organizations, you might have a support group of families who are dealing with similar issues.
It has become more common! While some families try DIR/Floortime on its own, it can be done in combination with other therapies, such as occupational therapy, speech therapy, and applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy. Many families enjoy incorporating exercises from DIR/Floortime with other therapies. Many therapists and providers like to include DIR/Floortime’s play and child-led approach into their practices.
DIR/Floortime has some research to support its effectiveness, though this is limited. In a 2019 study, researchers published positive outcomes as a result of DIR/Floortime, including increased joint attention and initiation of activities.
DIR/Floortime is currently considered to be an experimental treatment. As of the 2015 publishing of the National Standards Project on evidence-based treatments, DIR/Floortime was listed under the “unestablished level of evidence” category. While Floortime can benefit some children, more research is needed to establish efficacy. Our expert recommends Affect Autism to learn more about the research behind DIR/Floortime.