The Youngstown Hearing & Speech Center provides the finest pediatric and adult speech/language pathology services. YHSC has the largest staff of licensed speech/language pathologists in the Mahoning Valley. YHSC's speech pathologists provide comprehensive consultation, evaluation and treatment for communication disorders.

Pediatric Services

YHSC is renown for its pediatric speech language services. Every effort is made to involve and inform parents and other family members. Speech/language pathologists conduct therapy sessions in treatment rooms equipped with a hidden camera and microphone. This allows parents in the observation room to be part of the therapy program. The therapy rooms are also equipped so the speech/language session can be videotaped and practiced at home.

YHSC provides treatment for a wide spectrum of speech/language disorders including:

• Evaluation and treatment of infants, preschool and school age children.
  
• Feeding and Swallowing evaluations and treatment.
  
• Augmentative communication evaluation/instruction.
  
• Speech/language therapy for articulation, stuttering, expressive and or receptive disorders, auditory processing.
  
• Social Work support services.                                                                        
• T.O.P.S., an integrated therapy program incorporating occupational, physical and speech therapies for multi-needs children.

Adult Speech Services

The Youngstown Hearing & Speech Center also provides specialized speech/language services for adults. These services include:

• Laryngectomy rehabilitation.
• Evaluation and treatment of communication problems resulting from strokes and other neurological disorders.
• Stuttering evaluation and treatment.
• Voice evaluation and treatment.
• Evaluation and treatment of swallowing disorders.

Hospital/Nursing Home Services

YHSC's speech pathologists provide the speech pathology services to Forum Health at their Northside Medical Center, and Austintown Medical Park. YHSC's speech pathologists provide both adult and pediatric inpatient and outpatient services. Those services include;

• Evaluation and treatment of swallowing disorders.
• Evaluation and treatment of communication problems resulting from strokes and other neurological disorders.
• Education and counseling to new laryngectomy patients.
• Speech language therapy for children.

Support Groups

YHSC  provides support groups for those with communication disorders. These support groups facilitate the patient’s recovery and can be beneficial by providing educational and emotional support. Current support groups include:

• New Voice Club Support Group
• Stuttering Support Group

How do I know if my child has a speech disorder?

The following information provides general landmarks that might indicate a speech or language problem.

1. The infant/child is not responding appropriately to the environment
2. The infant does not display age-appropriate eating skills.
3. The child is not talking at all by the age two.
4. Speech is largely unintelligible after age three.
5. There are many omissions of initial or final consonants after age three.
6. There are no two or three word sentences by age three.
7. Sounds are more than a year late in appearing, according to development sequence.
8. There are many substitutions of easy sound for difficult ones after five.
9. The child uses mostly vowel sounds in his speech.
10. Word endings are consistently dropped after age five.
11. Sentence structure is noticeably faulty at age five.
12. The child is embarrassed and disturbed by their speech at any age.
13. The child is noticeably non-fluent after age five.
14. The child is distorting, omitting or substituting any sounds after age seven.
15. The voice is monotone, extremely loud, largely inaudible or of poor quality.
16. The pitch is not appropriate to the child's sex and age.
17. There is noticeable hypernasality or lack of nasal resonance.
18. There are unusual confusions, reversals or telescoping in connected speech.
19. There is abnormal rhythm; rate and inflection after age five.