Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) are professionals who identify, evaluate, and treat speech, language, cognitive, voice, fluency, and swallowing disorders. This includes providing guidance on how patients and families can maintain and improve communication and swallowing abilities.
Our goal is to improve effective communication. There are many ways a person’s ability to communicate can be impacted. We work to evaluate the underlying communication problem and develop a comprehensive treatment plan to meet the individual’s needs. We also collaborate with occupational and physical therapy to provide a team-based approach to treatment.
SLPs serve individuals from birth through end of life, providing high-quality, evidence-based services that are patient- and family-centered.
What do the SLPs at Central Vermont Medical Center do?
- We treat children with a variety of developmental speech, language, and communication disorders in our dedicated pediatric room.
- We provide services to adults who have acquired speech, language, voice and/or cognitive difficulties later in life due to stroke, brain injury (including concussion), chemotherapy treatment, or other neurological disorders.
- Our SLPs also offer specialty treatment programs, such as LSVT LOUD, a treatment program designed to improve communication for individuals with Parkinson’s disease.
- SLPs treat individuals who are experiencing difficulty swallowing. Changes to swallow function may be the result of stroke, brain or spinal cord injury, head and neck cancer, or neurological disease, such as Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis. Swallowing disorders are most commonly found in the elderly population, but can affect individuals of all ages. Swallowing disorders may lead to weight loss, poor nutrition/dehydration, discomfort while eating and drinking, and pneumonia/chronic lung disease if food or liquid enters the airway while swallowing.
- We serve on committees to provide insight on how to best manage communication, cognitive, and swallowing disorders.
- We provide services that include family and caregiver training to help patients use their strategies and tools beyond the therapy room.
There are many ways SLPs can work as part of your care team to enhance your participation, accessibility, and functioning as it relates to communication, cognition, and swallowing during every day activities!
We serve toddlers through older adult clients within our outpatient facility at 1311 Barre Montpelier Road, as well as patients at Central Vermont Hospital and at the National Life Cancer Treatment Center.
If you or someone you know may benefit from speech-language pathology services, please give us a call at 802-371-4242. Click here to learn more about all of our services.
