Speech Therapy

Speech therapy (ST) is the rehabilitation field that deals with speech and communication: assessing, diagnosing and correcting difficulties with pronunciation, voice and comprehension. At Boya Hospital, speech therapy is part of the comprehensive programme and works alongside physical therapy, occupational therapy and sensory integration.

What the therapist works on

• Oral muscle training — strengthening the muscles involved in articulation.
• Voice production — work on the strength and quality of the voice.
• Understanding and expressing thoughts — developing the ability to understand what is said and formulate a reply.

The goal is to help a child regain or improve the ability to communicate in words. This matters especially in speech developmental delay and in dysarthria, which is common in cerebral palsy and other neurological conditions.

Breathing and voice production

Correct speech breathing is the foundation of fluent, intelligible speech. This block includes:

• coordinating chest and abdominal breathing — the chest and the diaphragm, the main breathing muscle, working together;
• training breath depth: the larger the exhalation, the longer the phrase a child can produce without a pause;
• separate breathing through the mouth and nose — control over the airflow;
• exercises for clear and sustained production of sounds.

The articulatory organs

The articulatory organs are the lips, tongue, teeth, palate and lower jaw. The therapist works with each of them:

• eating — chewing and swallowing skills, closely linked to the speech muscles;
• lips — coordination and strength for labial sounds such as "p", "b" and "m";
• tongue — the mobility and precision required for most sounds;
• lower jaw — control over opening and closing the mouth while speaking;
• soft palate — exercises for its closure, to remove the nasal quality from the voice.

Voice and articulation

Work then moves on to sound quality and intelligibility: strength and resonance of the voice, precision of individual sounds, rhythm and intonation — correct stress, pace and phrase melody. A separate block is language situations: dialogues, games and short stories, where speech is used for its purpose rather than only inside an exercise.

Why it matters

Speech reaches far beyond pronunciation. A child who is understood finds it easier to talk to peers and adults, feels more confident and engages more actively in learning. That is why speech therapy is almost always combined with other rehabilitation methods — physical therapy, occupational therapy and sensory integration.