About Mary-Jane
My name is Mary-Jane Slingerland and I have worked as a certified Speech-Language Pathologist for over 30 years with children as young as 6 months. My training as an Early Childhood and Primary-Junior Educator, and Speech-Language Pathologist has provided me with the developmental knowledge base and experience to work with children presenting with communication difficulty. I also have extensive experience working with toddler to adult aged individuals with global developmental delays, but presently work mainly with children 6 years and under. I am sole owner of my private practice.
My Approach to Working with Young Children and NEW information regarding Service Modality
I believe children’s early communication, language and speech learning needs to be experienced in a naturalistic context with responsive adults. Given our present health crisis, I am able to meet with you and your child in person via an electronic device such as a desk or lap top computer, tablet or smart phone. I am providing individual telepractice services (consultation, assessment and therapy), within the comfort of the client's home and at a time that works best for children and parents who may be working from home. Telepractice has been researched and found to be an effective modality to inform and improve
overall communication, speech and language skills. Fun and laughter are still by products of
the therapeutic experience. They absolutely HAVE to be!
Speech-Language Pathologists are face to face, virtually, with children and parents/caregivers in their homes sharing motivating materials and interacting like in the therapy clinic. Children do respond more favourably in a virtual therapy situation than in a Face Time or Skype experience with family members, where they are often quiet or shy. Many parents are amazed that children can be so attentive to activities shared online but it's because of the interactive component that is tailored to the children's needs.
Early intervention with toddlers depends on teaching and coaching parents,caregivers and grandparents the essential skills to support their children's early communication development through play interactions.During my virtual assessment and consultation sessions, I work with you to determine your toddler’s needs in a play based setting in your home.
Areas of Clinical Interest and Experience
My Approach to Working with Young Children and NEW information regarding Service Modality
I believe children’s early communication, language and speech learning needs to be experienced in a naturalistic context with responsive adults. Given our present health crisis, I am able to meet with you and your child in person via an electronic device such as a desk or lap top computer, tablet or smart phone. I am providing individual telepractice services (consultation, assessment and therapy), within the comfort of the client's home and at a time that works best for children and parents who may be working from home. Telepractice has been researched and found to be an effective modality to inform and improve
overall communication, speech and language skills. Fun and laughter are still by products of
the therapeutic experience. They absolutely HAVE to be!
Speech-Language Pathologists are face to face, virtually, with children and parents/caregivers in their homes sharing motivating materials and interacting like in the therapy clinic. Children do respond more favourably in a virtual therapy situation than in a Face Time or Skype experience with family members, where they are often quiet or shy. Many parents are amazed that children can be so attentive to activities shared online but it's because of the interactive component that is tailored to the children's needs.
Early intervention with toddlers depends on teaching and coaching parents,caregivers and grandparents the essential skills to support their children's early communication development through play interactions.During my virtual assessment and consultation sessions, I work with you to determine your toddler’s needs in a play based setting in your home.
Areas of Clinical Interest and Experience
- Early Intervention with children under the age of 36 months
- Articulation and phonological disorders for children 3-6 years (speech production delays)
- Social Language Delays and Challenges ( conversation skills including turn taking, eye contact, initiating and ending conversaton, staying on topic, etc.)
- Childhood Receptive Language Delays (auditory processing of language difficulties which impacts following directions and understanding questions)
- Childhood Expressive Language Delays including: narrative/discourse skills or the organization of thoughts into sentences to retell a past event or experience), vocabulary (naming skills), grammar or syntax may be impaired
- Phonological Awareness Deficits: pre-reading skills like identifying and generating rhymes, identifying sounds heard at the beginning,middle and end of words,identifying syllabic structure of words, identifiying sounds in a word, etc.
