Scope of Practice
Inlet addresses a variety of pediatric communication disorders through awareness, skill-building and generalization, which are essential for personal, social and academic growth.
Speech Sound Disorders
Speech sound disorders (historically called articulation and phonological disorders) is an umbrella term referring to any difficulty or combination of difficulties with perception, motor production, or phonological representation of speech sounds and speech segments. Your child may substitute one sound for another, leave sounds out, add sounds, or change a sound. It can be hard for others to understand them. (ASHA, 2024).
Spoken Language Disorders
A spoken language disorder represents a persistent difficulty in the acquisition and use of listening and speaking skills across any of the five language domains: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Language disorders may persist across the life span, and symptoms may change over time. A spoken language disorder can occur in isolation or in the presence of other conditions (ASHA, 2024).
Receptive/Expressive Language
Some children have problems with receptive language, or understanding. They may have trouble: understanding what people mean when they use gestures, like shrugging or nodding; following directions; answering questions; pointing to objects and pictures; and/or knowing how to take turns when talking with others. Some children have problems with expressive language, or talking. They may have trouble: asking questions; naming objects; using gestures; putting words together into sentences; learning songs and rhymes; and using correct pronouns, like "he" or "they." Children can have problems with both understanding and talking (ASHA, 2024).
Social Communication Disorder
Social communication disorder (SCD) is characterized by persistent difficulties with the use of verbal and nonverbal language for social purposes. Primary difficulties may be in social interaction, social understanding, pragmatics, language processing, or any combination of the above (Adams, 2005). Social communication behaviors such as eye contact, facial expressions, and body language are influenced by sociocultural and individual factors (Curenton & Justice, 2004; Inglebret et al., 2008). There is a wide range of acceptable norms within and across individuals, families, and cultures (ASHA, 2024).
Fluency Disorders/Stuttering
A fluency disorder is an interruption in the flow of speaking characterized by atypical rate, rhythm, and disfluencies (e.g., repetitions of sounds, syllables, words, and phrases; sound prolongations; and blocks), which may also be accompanied by excessive tension, speaking avoidance, struggle behaviors, and secondary mannerisms (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [ASHA], 1993). People with fluency disorders also frequently experience psychological, emotional, social, and functional impacts as a result of their communication disorder (Tichenor & Yaruss, 2019a). Stuttering, the most common fluency disorder, is an interruption in the flow of speaking characterized by specific types of disfluencies (ASHA, 2024).
Higher-Order Language
Higher-order language skills include inferencing; comprehension monitoring; interpretation of complex and nonliteral language, such as jokes, puns, and idioms; and text structure knowledge. Metalinguistic awareness is “the ability to think about and reflect upon language” and is necessary for the development of higher order language skills (Gillon, 2004, p. 10). Metalinguistic awareness includes phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic awareness. Metalinguistic skills are also critical for self-regulation and self-monitoring. (ASHA, 2004).
Executive Function Deficits
The umbrella term executive function (EF) refers to a group of interrelated cognitive processes, including but not limited to controlling initiation and inhibition; sustaining and shifting attention; organization; goal setting, and completion; and determining plans for the future. Taken together, these skills allow individuals to plan and execute tasks as well as to interact and communicate successfully with others. EF deficits are a breakdown of any of these skills at any level. Such a breakdown can impact an individual’s ability to complete functional tasks, such as following a sleep schedule, completing assignments, meeting deadlines, planning for activities, navigating social situations, and managing medications (ASHA, 2024).
Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness (PA) is the awareness of and ability to work with sounds in spoken language. It sets the stage for decoding, blending, and, ultimately, word reading. PA begins developing before the beginning of formal schooling and continues through third grade and beyond. PA is essential for reading because written words correspond to spoken words. Readers must have awareness of the speech sounds that letters and letter combinations represent in order to move from a printed word to a spoken word (reading), or a spoken word to a written word (spelling) (Moats, 2010). Awareness of the sounds in spoken language is required to learn letter-sound correspondences; to blend sounds together to decode a word; and to "map" words into long-term sight vocabulary (Kilpatrick, 2015). (MA DESE, 2024).