Pediatric Speech Therapy Services

We work with babies, toddlers, children, and adolescents

Speech and Language therapy focuses on improving a childs’ ability to communicate both verbally and nonverbally. Speech and Language Pathologists help build communication by providing a fun, nurturing and creative environment.  The speech and language team at CFZ offer specialized diagnostic and language services by completing comprehensive evaluations and treatment for a range of ages and patient needs.

Our Speech and Language Pathologists have over 30 years of cumulative experience diagnosing and treating a variety of disorders.  At Cheshire Fitness Zone, we recognize that your child’s communication skills impact your family as a whole.  Therefore, we work closely with parents and caregivers to address your child’s specific needs across a variety of settings by collaborating on a regular basis and providing specially designed home programs to facilitate progress.

Treatment Areas Our Therapists Address

Click any of the treatment areas below to learn about concerns addressed through speech and language therapy.

Expressive Language Disorder: Difficulty formulating sentences to express information in spoken or written language. This may include use of vocabulary, syntax and morphology.

Receptive Language Disorder: Difficulty comprehending and processing spoken or written language

Pragmatic Disorders:  Difficulty using language in a socially appropriate way

An impairment in any of these areas can cause a child to have difficulty communicating with others.  Language disorders may exist for a variety of reasons including learning disabilities, hearing impairment or auditory processing deficits.  The team at Cheshire Fitness Zone will complete a thorough assessment to determine if a language disorder exists and will work directly with the child and family to develop a treatment plan to address specific skills.

Articulation disorders: A delay in developing sounds due to errors in how the sound is perceived (hearing), movement based weaknesses, or poor interpretation of sensory information in the oral cavity.

As speech and language skills develop, you may notice that your child may produce speech sounds incorrectly. In the early years, many of these errors are considered developmental. However, some speech sound errors are not typical, and can indicate a disorder.  At Cheshire Fitness Zone, our speech therapists will complete an assessment to determine if errors produced are considered developmental based on his or her age. Treatment programs are developed and home programming will be specially designed for practice in the natural environment.

Phonological disorders: Sound errors that occur when the child does not understand the rules for producing sounds and speech patterns within the context of spoken language beyond the developmentally appropriate age. Some examples of these include final consonant deletion (e.g. saying ca/cat) and syllable reduction (e.g. nana/banana).

It is common for phonological patterns to exist during the early years of development.  Many times, these patterns disappear naturally as the child’s language grows. However, if patterns persist, this may indicate a phonological disorder.  The therapists at Cheshire Fitness Zone have experience assessing these error patterns to determine if they are beyond the point of natural remediation.

Apraxia of Speech: Motor speech disorder that impacts the production of sounds, syllables and words. The difficulty stems from the brain, causing difficulties planning and coordinating the movements of the muscles in the absence of muscle weakness or paralysis.

Dysarthria:  motor speech disorder resulting from impaired movement of the muscles used for speech production. This includes the lips, tongue, vocal folds, and/or diaphragm.

Cleft Lip/Palate: Speech and feeding issues that remain after the surgical repair of the tissue in the lip or palate (roof of mouth) that did not form properly in utero, resulting in a physical separation between the lip, palate, or both.

Frontal Lisp or tongue thrust pattern: Protrusion of the tongue beyond the developmentally appropriate age that extends between the anterior teeth on sounds defined as sibilants ( s, z, sh, ch, and  j ).

Ankyloglossis (tongue-tie): Limited tongue movement as a result of  the abnormal shortness of the lingual frenum.

Lateral Lisp: Occurs when air escapes out the sides of the mouth on sibilant sounds instead of the middle creating a slushy sound.

Oral Phase Dysphagia: Difficulty controlling the chewing and movement of food or liquids in the oral area prior to swallowing.  Symptoms may include increased time to chew or swallow, spillage or leakage of food or liquid from the mouth, drooling, and residual of food in the mouth after eating.

There are many reasons why children may experience oral phase dysphagia.  At Cheshire Fitness Zone, we have therapists who are specially trained in treating this area by addressing oral motor function, sensory-motor issues and positioning.  We work closely with the patient and caregivers to develop home programs and provide strategies to make meal time a success.

Stuttering: A disruption in the normal fluency and flow of speech

Stuttering often occurs during childhood when language is developing and will on many occasions, resolve itself.  A normally disfluent child may repeat syllables or words once or twice or use fillers including “uh” or “um”.  In some cases, disfluencies may persist, occurring with increased frequency, and may greatly impact a child’s ability to communicate.  Our therapists have experience determining whether the stuttering is likely to continue.  For those requiring direct treatment, we believe that parent training is an integral part of progress and work to develop individualized treatment programs designed to facilitate fluent speech in everyday situations.

Developmental Delay: occurs when children have not reached developmental milestones within expected time frames.  Learn more about speech and language developmental milestones in our Family Resources section.

The team at Cheshire Fitness Zone can determine whether your child is reaching developmental milestones within expected timeframes and will help to identify the cause for the delay.

Specialized programs offered at Cheshire Fitness Zone

Our therapists are educated in a variety of specialized programs used to facilitate speech and language development.  The following are some of the programs that may be used during treatment sessions:

Take Our Developmental Milestone Quiz!

As parents, we all want to ensure that our children are meeting crucial developmental milestones. Use this tool to see if your child is on the right track.

What Clients Are Saying

I am so happy we came to Cheshire Fitness Zone. My daughter injured her hip figure skating. Another physical therapist diagnosed and treated her incorrectly. Luckily when we came to Cheshire Fitness Zone and saw Craig he discovered her injury was something else and much more of a serious injury. In fact, we were referred to a Pedi orthopedist who concluded with Craig’s diagnosis. The orthopedist said it was a good find, very difficult to catch, and often missed. My daughter had surgery and is now recovering and seeing Craig for rehab. She is almost done and doing well. Highly recommended Cheshire Fitness Zone.
Elaine Reilly
As a physical therapist at Cheshire Fitness Zone, I have seen firsthand the positive impact therapy services have had on so many children and their families. We are very family-oriented at Cheshire Fitness Zone and are constantly working with our families to help reach their goals for their children. It is an extremely rewarding feeling to see a child learn mobility skills that they were unable to perform prior to starting therapy services. The staff at Cheshire Fitness Zone is dedicated to providing the best care possible for all the children that they work with.
Anonymous
Cheshire Fitness Zone has been wonderful. We have worked with many of the therapists for OT and PT and have had excellent experiences with all of them. They were very accommodating to our schedule. And even on a day where my son was not into working they are always able to get him to work. Their front office is very pleasant and are always smiling when we arrive. I have to bring my other son when we come and the therapists are always willing to include both of them on days where it is difficult waiting in the lobby.
Don Hamilton
My girls have been going to Cheshire Fitness Zone since the summer of 2015 and the therapy they receive from their therapist is the best therapy they have ever received. The therapists are the friendliest and nicest group of therapists we have ever met. The girls enjoy going to therapy and I am very happy that we go to Cheshire Fitness Zone.
Anonymous
From the moment you check in at the front desk to your discussion with your therapist at the end of the session, you feel at home, respected, and in great hands. The improvements you will see in your child will say it all.
Melissa Linehan
Everyone at Cheshire Fitness is always so friendly and welcoming. They provide a wonderful atmosphere for the children and are so supportive. The best gift anyone can give a parent is caring for his or her kid and helping his or her kid to live to their greatest potential and that is exactly what the therapists at Cheshire Fitness Zone do. They truly care and we will be forever grateful for the tools they have provided our child.
Anonymous
A five star rating would not be enough for Cheshire Fitness Zone! From the first time I called to schedule my son’s consult to now one year later, we are consistently greeted by the most caring and loving staff. My son goes to Cheshire Fitness Zone for oral motor/speech therapy and sees Miss Kim. When I say she is the best, she truly is! From day one she has put her heart and soul into my child’s therapy. The strides my son has made in one year is amazing. Not only is Kim the nicest person ever, she is extremely knowledgeable in her field and is constantly thinking of new ways to improve my son’s speech.
Nicole Rybaruk
My son has greatly benefited from OT and PT at Cheshire Fitness Zone. The therapists are so patient and knowledgeable. The facility is also very impressive and fun. We look forward to seeing our son progress as we continue therapy.
Anonymous
Highly recommend. The warm, loving atmosphere sets the tone for these highly motivated therapists to do their thing. The office staff is top notch as well!!
Peter S.
The physical therapists at Cheshire Fitness Zone are warm, caring individuals. They have worked with my daughter for about a year and a half now and she has made tremendous progress building her core strength, coordination, balance, and overall strengthening. I recommend them highly.
Kristine Livolsi

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