Ms. Joseph's Page - Speech and Langauge Therapy

  • Hello Everyone and welcome to my new classroom website!

    My name is Ms. Joseph and I am Fairmount School's Speech and Language Therapist.  Let me explain the difference between speech and language therapy so that you may better understand what I do. 

     

    What Is Speech? What Is Language?  (taken from ASHA.org)

    Speech and language are different. A person can have problems with one or both.

     

    What Is Speech?

    Speech is how we say sounds and words. Speech includes:

    • Articulation 
      How we make speech sounds using the mouth, lips, and tongue. For example, we need to be able to say the “r” sound to say "rabbit" instead of "wabbit.
    • Voice
      How we use our vocal folds and breath to make sounds. Our voice can be loud or soft or high- or low-pitched. We can hurt our voice by talking too much, yelling, or coughing a lot.
    • Fluency 
      This is the rhythm of our speech. We sometimes repeat sounds or pause while talking. People who do this a lot may stutter.

     

    What Is Language?

    Language refers to the words we use and how we use them to share ideas and get what we want. Language includes:

    • What words mean. Some words have more than one meaning. For example, “star” can be a bright object in the sky or someone famous.
    • How to make new words. For example, we can say “friend,” “friendly,” or “unfriendly” and mean something different.
    • How to put words together. For example, in English we say, “Peg walked to the new store” instead of “Peg walk store new.”
    • What we should say at different times. For example, we might be polite and say, “Would you mind moving your foot?” But, if the person does not move, we may say, “Get off my foot!

     

    We can have trouble with speech, language, or both.

     

    Having trouble understanding what others say is a receptive language disorder. Having problems sharing our thoughts, ideas, and feelings is an expressive language disorder. It is possible to have both a receptive and an expressive language problem.

     

    When we have trouble saying sounds, stutter when we speak, or have voice problems, we have a speech disorder.

     

    If you have any questions or concerns regarding your child's speech and language development, please feel free to email me at ljoseph@hackensackschools.org or call me directly at (201) 646-7888.  Email is my preferred means of communication, as I check it multiple times per day.  I cannot always answer the phone, as I am typically in session.  

     

    Thank you,

    Lincy Joseph, MS, CCC-SLP