Speech sessions are conducted individually or in small groups as delineated in each student’s IEP. Speech lessons focus on improving pragmatic and social skills. Pragmatic skill work encourages students to engage in conversations, maintain eye contact, and solve problems. Students also work on taking turns and understanding various language forms, such as idioms and sarcasm. Social skill work teaches students to make inferences about situations and understand nonverbal communication.

The speech-language pathologist targets expressive language with students. This includes using grammatical structures properly, asking and answering questions, and expanding vocabulary skills. Students target improving the intelligibility of their speech via precise production of target sounds, speaking at an appropriate rate and volume, and applying fluency enhancing strategies.

Animal Assisted Therapy in Speech and Language Therapy

All dogs have a story and our students love to hear it. In speech therapy, most students who have an interest are happy to read, write or discuss the dog and its life story. Students are often motivated to ask questions and share experiences about the facility dog or even other dogs that may have a relationship with. As pragmatic language skills are developed through these interactions, so is the confidence to socialize with others outside of a therapy session.

Vocabulary, comprehension and memory skills are all crucial in building a student’s expressive language ability. Students are able to address speech and language communication deficits in a non-judgmental environment, while one of our facility dogs is present. Beneficial outcomes include:

  • Greater increase in student participation and class commitment
  • Improvement of student performance
  • Increased ability to interact with peers and teachers
  • Willingness to challenge oneself
  • Less anxiety when addressing student deficits
  • Feelings of accomplishment & success

Through giving the students the opportunity to teach a skill or help the dog practice a newly learned skill, they are gaining valuable experience from conversational engagement and small group dialogue exposure.