Pediatric speech and occupational therapy located close to Cooper City, Pembroke Pines, Hollywood, Davie, Ft. Lauderdale, Sunrise and Southwest Ranches.
Today the benefits and rewards of speech and language therapy and occupational therapy have become widely recognized by parents, educators and the medical profession in assisting children with special needs or specific issues to reach their full potential.
In addition to speech intelligibility and articulation issues, speech therapy also addresses the understanding and use of language. Many pre-linguistic skills must be in place prior to a child acquiring and using language. As the child matures, more prerequisites are required to appropriately learn to read and perform academic tasks.
Occupational therapy is the domain that assesses and treats fine motor skills, sensory dysfunction, balance, and proprioceptive issues. Lagging or undeveloped skills that typically develop early in a child’s life can cause other developmental delays. These deficits can manifest in a variety of ways including behavioral issues.
Parents frequently report that they are unsure of whether or not their child is speaking and performing other life skills (e.g., play or motor tasks such as dressing) age appropriately. We offer a free screening to determine if there are indicators that would warrant further evaluation. Many parents find this service to be very comforting in relieving concerns of their child’s abilities.
Our therapists possess a combined 60 years of experience and all of our therapists have full credentials for licensure under the State of Florida. Specialized Speech Center, Inc. (SSC) strongly holds to the belief that therapists should maintain knowledge of the most current research and techniques being utilized in the profession. Therefore, all of the therapists regularly attend seminars and conferences in their domain.
John Tambasco and Jennifer Lallouz opened SSC in 1998. Since that time we have continued to grow. Many of our therapists started with us as interns during their formal education. We have extensive experience with the infant, toddler, and school age population working with special needs children with a variety of diagnoses and deficits. Our specialized areas of therapy include: feeding and swallowing disorders, cleft palate, failure to thrive, developmental delays in pre-linguistic language skills, play skills, language acquisition and comprehension, cognitive delays, muscle tone, motor planning, sensory integration, visual perceptual skills, social communication and pragmatic issues, behavioral deficits, auditory processing and comprehension disorders, voice therapy, hearing impaired and cochlear implants, low vision impairments, neurological disorders including Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Autism, Asperberger’s Syndrome, Down’s Syndrome, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders(ADHD & ADD), memory and processing deficits, learning disabilities, and handwriting. Our occupational therapist, Laura Holmes is certified in Handwriting Without Tears.
