FAQ

Yes I am! Fill out my contact form or send me a text and let's plan a time to talk about what you're seeing and whether I could be of help.

I currently hold daytime sessions on Tues/Thurs. Each session lasts 45 minutes and will occur at my in-home clinic located in Queen Creek. To see a current list of my availability, check my schedule: littlelightspeech.square.site

I do not conduct our own standardized testing. Rather, I gather information through informal screeners, speech samples and observations, and parent interviews. However, if your child has already received formal testing elsewhere, I am happy to base services off their results/goals.

I am private pay only, which means I do not accept or bill insurance.

This allows me to tailor my services to your needs more specifically and spend more of my admin time preparing fun and unique session plans for your child. 

It also allows me to serve children who may not otherwise qualify for speech services based on standardized testing, but who may still benefit from assistance.

Yes, I am a registered provider for ESA and have have plenty of families use those funds for my speech services.

Each child must be assessed individually, but here are some common speech error patterns that I work on with preschoolers. They are called phonological processes and most of them are very typical for children to use while they're learning to speak, but we expect them to grow out of it by certain ages. If they're still demonstrating that pattern beyond that age, we then consider targeting it in speech services.

• fronting (replacing back-of-the-mouth sounds /k,g/ with a front-of-the-mouth sound /t, d/)

  • eg: "tup" for cup, "montee" for monkey

• stopping (turning "go" sounds /s, z, f, v/ into "stop" sounds /t, d, p, v/)

  • eg: "doo" for shoe, "puddle" for puzzle

• cluster reduction (simplifying when two sounds are put together,)

  • eg: "pate" for plate, "poon" for spoon

• initial consonant deletion (not saying the first sound in words)

  • eg: "um" for thumb, "ooh" for shoe

• final consonant deletion (not saying the last sound in words)

  • eg: "lee" for leaf, "weh" for web

Contact me for a free phone consultation to discuss your child's speech or send us a video of your child speaking and I can give you an idea if they would benefit from a screening and services.

There are so many things, but one experience in particular solidified my passion for this field. During my undergraduate schooling, I read a book (Diving Bell and the Butterfly) about a man with locked-in syndrome who was totally normal cognitively, but the only part of his body that he could control was one eye. His speech therapist worked with him to create a system for him to communicate by her scanning through the letters and him blinking when she got to the letter of the alphabet he wanted, and that's how he wrote the book. It shocked me that he sounded so normal in his writing, but if you were to look at him, you would think he was a vegetable. This somehow resonated in me that people are often misunderstood and judged based on how they communicate, when there is so much more inside. And the purpose of my job is to help people with their communication abilities so that others can see that fantastic light that they have to share with everyone.