Speech Pathology

As a Speech Pathologist, Katrina has been trained to assess and treat both adults and children who have a communication disability. Katrina has chosen to specialise working with children and has seen thousands of children and their parents in her clinics.

Katrina has completed a Bachelor of Applied Science degree at Sydney University(Cumberland Campus) which covers all aspects of communication in detail. These aspects include:

• Speech - talking with clear speech sounds;
• Language - being able to understand and use words
• Writing - being able to spell words and create sentences and stories/letters;
• Reading - being able to know what letter-sounds are, and to combine these to read words, phrases and sentences.,
• Signs - being able to use sign language to communicate;
• Symbols - being able to understand and use symbols to represent ideas, need and wants;
• Gestures - knowing what hand/face or whole body positioning can do to enhance understanding or expression.

Communication -
is the process of
being able to
understand and to be
understood - and it is
something most of
us take for granted.

Communication
disabilities are the
result of problems with
speech, using and
understanding language,
voice, fluency, hearing,
or reading and writing.

One in seven Australians has some form of communication disability. This means that one in seven people has a problem understanding other people or being understood by people. It means they cannot receive a message clearly from another person, or cannot communicate their own message back to somebody.

What do we know from research?

• Children with oral language disorders are at risk of developing literacy difficulties (Catts 1993)
• Poor syntactic ability and poor semantic ability are strong predictors of later reading difficulties, especially reading comprehension (Catts 1993)
• Oral language disorders seem to be a stronger predictor of reading difficulties than speech impairment. (Catts 1993)

What else does research tell us?

• Children with speech impairments due to physical (motor) problems like cleft palate or cerebral palsy) are no more likely to have literacy problems than those with normal speech (Stackhouse 1982)
• Children with phonological disorders or developmental verbal dyspraxia typically go on to have literacy difficulties (Leitao, Fletcher and Hogben 2000)
• Phonological awareness correlates strongly with development of reading and spelling.(Liberman & Shankweiler 1985)
• Children with phonological disorders typically show more difficulty with phonemic awareness skills, and hence are likely to experience difficulty with literacy skills. (Leitao, Fletcher and Hogben 2000)

What do we need for research?

• Children with oral language disorders are at risk of developing literacy difficulties (Catts 1993)
• Poor syntactic ability and poor semantic ability are strong predictors of later reading difficulties, especially reading comprehension (Catts 1993)
• Oral language disorders seem to be a stronger predictor of reading difficulties than speech impairment. (Catts 1993)

References:

Catts, H(1993) The relationship between speech-language impairments and reading disabilities. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 36, 948 - 958

Howden, V (2003) Speech Impairment and Literacy Development Australian Communication QuarterlyVol 5 No 3 107 - 110

Letitao, S., Hogben, J & Fletcher J (1997) Phonological processing skills in speech and language impaired children. European Journal of Disorders of Communication, 32, 72-93.

Liberman, I Y & Shankweiler, D. (1985) Phonology and the problems of learning to read and write. Remedial and Special Education, 6, 8 - 17

Stackhouse, J (1982) An investigation of reading and spelling performance in speech disordered children. British Journal of Disorders of Communication 17, 53-60