A wide variety of Speech and Language problems have been identified for decades. The tempo of such problems is found to be increasing at an alarming rate and “Specific Language Impairment” is one of the most common among these. The term refers to a specific impairment in spoken language ability when there is no obvious accompanying condition such as Mental Retardation, Neurological damage or Hearing Impairment. Successful communication comes from the mastery of subtleties of interactive language. Therefore a group therapeutic intervention project has been taken up by the National Institute of Speech and Hearing for SLI population.

The project was inaugurated on 8/3/2013. Participation in the program is based on the detailed evaluation across a varied range of skills.

SLI group therapy program is provided for children between the ages 3 - 5 yrs.

The major focus of Specific Language Impairment Unit (SLI Unit) is to deliver an intensive therapy package to facilitate language emergence. Group therapy sessions focus on communicative parameters such as communicative intent, lexical semantic abilities and improving the mean length of utterance. Also, we concentrate on socialization skills, cognition and prosodic aspects. In contrast to one to one direct therapy, group therapy offers a direct parent education with an observation of therapy sessions to enable the learning of stimulation techniques for use within the home.

Therapy is delivered once in a week for 2 hrs.

The progress will be monitored on a regular 6months period.

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Learning bridge is a group therapy clinic developed with an aim of providing intervention for children with Specific Learning Disorder. Specific learning disorder/ Learning disability refers to significant learning problems in an academic area. It describes a group of disorders characterized by inadequate development of specific academic, language, and speech skills.Types of learning disabilities include reading disability (dyslexia), mathematics disability (dyscalculia) and writing disability (dysgraphia). Learning bridge was started on February 2013 as a trial basis with 7 students who were coming at NISH for regular speech and language therapy.  Before enrolling the children into the group initial assessments including IQ & Speech and language evaluation were done.

Mission:  To provide evidence-based services that anticipate and respond to the needs of individuals who experience learning disabilities. Speech and language therapy works in partnership with these individuals and their families and with other professions to reduce the impact of these difficulties on people’s wellbeing.

Objective:

• • To improve the social, academic, and speech and language skills of the child with specific learning disability.
  • To provide strategies and techniques to compensate their learning difficulties and thereby reducing the negative effect of it     on the overall performance of the child.
  • To increase the  independent function
  • To improve participation in family, social, occupational and educational activities
  • To reduce the risk of educational failure
  • To reduce the risk of social isolation

 For details, contact 

Speech and Language Therapeutics department at NISH is a well-established department that provides habilitative and rehabilitative treatment services. We provide quality clinical services to adults and children with

• • Language and speech disorders, secondary to cleft palate, cerebral palsy, autism, hearing loss, cognitive disorders, learning disabilities.
  • Language or speech difficulties following brain damage such as stroke or any head
  • Speech difficulties after surgical removal of tongue or larynx
  • Voice disorders
  • Hearing loss
  • Swallowing disorders

Graduate, as well as postgraduate students, provide individual and group therapy under the supervision of certified speech-language pathologist approved by Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI). Speech therapy timings will be allotted to the clients depending on the convenience of the client as well as the availability of therapists. Our department is open from Monday through Saturday starting from 8.30am - 4.30pm. Individual therapy sessions are being followed at NISH, in addition, the special clinics provide group intervention programs for ASD, LD, SLI, and Stuttering.

Each therapy session has a duration of 45minutes following which home training goals and activities will be counselled to the parents. Often Parental Awareness Programs are organized for different disorders at NISH.

The cost of Speech and Language Therapy vary depending upon the socio-economic status of the client or family. The appointments given for therapy are to be followed strictly by the clients.

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The department is dedicated to evaluation and diagnosis of speech and language disorders in pediatric as well as the adult population.

Speech disorders can occur as a problem with the articulation of speech sounds, dysfluent speech/stammering and can also manifest as voice problems.  Speech disorders can be present alone or in conjunction with other neurological disorders like dysarthria, apraxia, cerebral palsy etc.

Speech Assessment Tests

1. Stuttering Severity Index
2. Stuttering Prediction Instrument
3. Malayalam Articulation Test
4. Photo Articulation Test
5. FrenchayDysarthric Assessment
6. Apraxia Battery for Adults
7. Behaviour assessment battery for school-age children who stutter
8. Dr. Speech Voice Analysis system
9. VAGHMI
10. PRAAT
11. Proforma - CP, Voice, Fluency, Laryngectomy, Cleft lip & Palate.

Language problems are seen in both adults and children. In adults, it occurs usually after a neurological insult like in case of stroke/ accident/ blow to head/ old age. In children language delays/ deviancy etc may occur alone as in case of Specific Language Impairment or it can occur as a result of conditions like Cerebral Palsy, Mental Subnormality, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Hearing loss etc.
 

Language Assessment Tools

1. Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination test
2. Western Aphasia Battery
3. Receptive and Expressive Emergent Language Scale
4. Scale of Early Communication Skills
5. 3 Dimensional Language Acquisition Skills
6. Childhood Autism Rating Scale
7. Revised Token Test
8. Test of Language Development
9. Linguistic Profile Test
10. Autistic Behavior Composite Checklist and Profile
11. Malayalam Language Test
12. Illinois test of Psycholinguistic ability
13. Assessment of Language Development
14. Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers