Shalva - Speech Therapy

Summer camp 2010

Each year, SHALVA’s children with special needs enjoy a two week summer break, far away from the hot city. For the parents of these children, it is difficult to remember a time when they could not rely on the desperately needed renewal that is a result of this critical break.

The New Center

In 2012 the new Shalva National Children's Center will be opened in Jerusalem. It will be the largest of its kind in Israel, servicing toddlers, children, teenagers and their families throughout the year...

Speech Therapy

Good communication is an essential tool for a sound life on a personal and social level and the key to a normative life. In most cases, the average toddler does not require support to go successfully through the various developmental milestones; he conceptualizes through a natural and daily process of trial and error. However, the process of acquiring skills for toddlers with special needs does not progress naturally; much effort and many resources are needed to help these children master their skills so they can manage to live a more normative life.

In the area of communication, this problem is magnified. The stimulations are less tangible and less structured for the inexperienced parent, so the professional intervention is vital. It prevents the gap from increasing and inhibits the formation of irreversible impediments.

The speech therapists at Shalva address a wide range of problems -- those that touch directly on verbal communication and those that are associated with it.

Sensory-motor area: intensifying the stimulation of sensations and flavors in the mouth area and around it
Neuro-motor area: The creation and embedding of a link between forming a sound or eating and between the mouth and facial features
Auditory-phonological distinction: relating to sounds within a background noise; identifying voices and words
Developing communication skills with one another and developing a desire to communicate with the world; decoding the surrounding events
Acquiring a pragmatic understanding and adjusting reactions to various situations, such as right and wrong, good and bad, pleasant or dangerous
Learning cognitive terms that are mostly lip oriented: names of objects and their uses, primary categories: foods, clothing, animals, colors, directions and so on.
Learning the pronunciation of vocal sounds for the purpose of producing words and forming basic sentences

All progress, great or small, has an influence on improving the child's chances for a normative family life and a better integration into community life.

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