Speech Supports

Communication impacts how we connect with others, learn, advocate for ourselves and participate in everyday life. Our Speech Pathologists work with children, teenagers and young adults to understand their individual communication profile, identify strengths and areas where support may be helpful, and provide practical, neurodiversity-affirming assessment and intervention.

We support individuals with a wide range of communication and learning needs, including autistic and ADHD individuals, those with developmental or intellectual disabilities, and people experiencing speech, language, literacy or social communication differences.

PATC provides comprehensive Speech Pathology assessments for children, adolescents and young adults.

Assessment can help identify and understand:

• Receptive language – understanding spoken and written language
• Expressive language – communicating thoughts, ideas and information
• Speech sound development
• Social and pragmatic communication
• Literacy, reading and written language
• Phonological awareness and processing
• Functional communication
• Communication support needs
• Strengths and challenges impacting learning, education, employment and everyday participation

Assessments are individually tailored and may include standardised assessment, interviews, questionnaires, observations and information from parents, educators or other professionals.

Our Speech Pathologists provide comprehensive written reports with clear recommendations that can be used to support planning across home, school, university, employment and community settings.

Our Speech Pathologists provide individualised intervention based on each person's goals, strengths and everyday needs.

Support may focus on:

• Language – understanding information and expressing thoughts, ideas and needs
• Speech – developing speech sounds and intelligibility
• Literacy – reading, spelling, written expression and underlying language skills
• Social communication – understanding and navigating communication across different environments
• AAC and multimodal communication – supporting communication using speech, gesture, visuals and augmentative and alternative communication
• Fluency – support for people who stutter or experience differences in the flow of their speech
• Functional communication – developing strategies that support independence and participation in everyday life
• Self-advocacy – understanding and communicating individual needs, preferences and accommodations

There is no single "right" way to communicate.

Our approach is neurodiversity-affirming, strengths-based and individualised. We don't aim to teach people to mask their natural communication style or communicate in ways that simply appear more neurotypical.

Instead, we focus on communication that is functional, meaningful and authentic to the individual, while also helping the people and environments around them better understand and support their communication needs.

Speech Pathology can be provided independently or alongside Psychology and Occupational Therapy at PATC.

Working within a multidisciplinary team allows us to consider communication alongside areas such as cognition, learning, executive functioning, sensory processing, emotional wellbeing and everyday functioning.

This can be particularly valuable when completing comprehensive assessments or supporting children, teenagers and young adults with complex or overlapping needs.