Speech Pathology Case Study – Andrew’s Story

August 22-28 is Speech Pathology Week, which seeks to promote the speech pathology profession and the work done by speech pathologists with the 1.2 million Australians who have a communication disability. Communication is a basic human right and Speech Pathology Week seeks to make Australians aware of this.

The below case study demonstrates how our highly qualified and skilled team of speech pathologists work with clients, their families and other allied health professionals to ensure people in our communities are able to communicate with confidence.

Andrew’s parents, Lisa and Jake, were concerned that Andrew had not started talking by 18 months of age. Their Maternal and Child Health Nurse suggested that they consult with a speech pathologist.

Lisa and Jake decided to attend speech pathology at healthAbility. They met with Georgia, one of our speech pathologists. Georgia talked to Lisa and Jake at length to find out about Andrew’s early developmental and health history.

Andrew was generally healthy and had met his milestones (other than language), except he had experienced middle ear infections between 12-18 months of age. Georgia also wanted to know how Andrew was communicating with his family. For example, would he turn to his name? Could he follow simple instructions? Was he pointing to request? Was he babbling?

At the conclusion of the session Georgia wrote a referral to audiology, and provided the family with some strategies to progress Andrew’s communication to words. Andrew and his family attended six speech pathology sessions, and by 24 months of age he had developed 50 words and was putting two-word phrases together, and was now within the average range for language development for his age.

Find out more about our speech pathology services here.