| South Columbia Elementary Speech Impaired Services |
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Does my child have a speech problem? |
| All Columbia County Schools offer Speech Impaired Services for students who are eligible. I am Penny Hodges, the speech pathologist at South Columbia Elementary School. I hold an undergraduate degree from Western Carolina University and a Masters Degree from the University of Georgia in Speech/Language Pathology. If the question above has crossed your mind maybe I can help you answer that question in the content of this webpage. If it only adds more questions to your list you may contact me at the following email address: . You may also phone the school and leave a message. I will return your call as soon as possible. |
What is normal? |
| There are many areas that fall under the heading of Speech Impaired Services. If you know what is considered "normal" it may help you make a judgement about your child's speech and language. As you child grows, his/her speech will develop. Children start vocalizing around the age of two or three months. By the time they are three years old most of what they say is understandable. By the age of 4 years your child should have a vocabulary of over 1,000 words and his/her speech should be understood by all. This is not to say that all of his speech sounds will be correct, but he/she should be intelligible even to those who do not know your child. Your child may also go through a period where he/she repeats sounds, syllables, or whole words. This may be normal non-fluent duplication of speech. If you are not sure and would like to know more, contact the speech pathologist at your school for tips on what to do. |
What can I do to help my child? |
If your child is already in school you may contact his/her teacher and request a meeting with the teacher and speech pathologist. The meeting will be a Student Support Meeting and at that meeting options for you child may be discussed. If your child is not yet school age, you may contact the special services office and talk to the preschool coordinator, or the school speech pathologist.
You as a parent may also help your child doing the following:
1. Always be a good speech model for your child. Do not use baby talk.
2. Look at your child while you are both talking. This allows your child
to see your face and how you are producing words and sounds.
3. If your child says something incorrectly try to rephrase what was said back to your child without calling attention to what was done incorrectly. This gives him a direct model of the correct production.
4. If your child is dysfluent, be patient and accepting of his/her speech and give him/her plenty of time to talk without interruptions. Patience and acceptance of your child's speech at this time is most important.
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What can I do to get more information? |
The area of Speech/Language Pathology is very broad. Some of the areas served by the speech pathologist in your school are:
Articulation
Phonology
Apraxia
Receptive/Expressive Language
Fluency
Voice
Syntax
Semantics
Autism
Pragmatics
Augmentative Communication
and many more
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