Why is the child not speaking?
Disorders in the development of speech is always the result of troubled development of the child’s nervous system. Speech is developed thanks to gradual maturity of the brain and communication with other people.
Most common reasons for disorders in speech development for children:
- The brain takes too long to process what the ears are hearing
- The brain does not send impulses to the muscles of the tongue, lips and cheeks on time (disrupted muscular innervation of the vocal apparatus)
- Uncoordinated work of the areas of the brain responsible for perception of speech and for speaking
- Disrupted formation of communication skills
- Parents incapable of stimulating the child’s speech development
Children diagnosed with speech delay, autism, general hypoplasia of speech, dysarthria, phonetic-phonemic speech underdevelopment, delay in speech development – these are all disorders that become apparent to various degrees sooner or later.
So, what to do with such a child – should we treat or teach them?
Neural speech therapy is the bridge from medicine to pedagogy.
“Impulss”, alongside neurologists from St. Petersburg reveals the reasons for disorders in brain processes with the help of objective functional diagnostics.
Specialists at “Impulss” work on removing neurological causes for speech disorders using pedagogical (non-pharmacological) methods, as the brain can create new neural connections in response to information coming from the surrounding environment.
The lifelong ability of the brain to learn (developing new neural connections) is called neuroplasticity. A child’s active participation during sessions allows strengthening of new neural connections inside the brain.
What methods are used at “Impulss” to stimulate speech development?
Aside from the traditional speech therapy techniques (lessons with a speech therapist, articulatory gymnastics, speech therapy massage and so on) we use computer technology based on biofeedback (Interactive Metronome, Balance-Master). Also, we make use of neuroacoustic method of harmonizing the work of the brain (Tomatis).
These techniques are supported with musical therapy, art therapy, neurodynamic gymnastics, massage with an emphasis on the “collar zone”. All this stimulates development of immature areas of a child’s brain and helps the nervous system to learn to work faster and more harmoniously.
World practice shows that the effectiveness of such a method is approximately 35% greater than the effectiveness of regular sessions.
“Impulss” is the only medical centre in Estonia that makes use of the neural speech therapy methods.