Online Therapy for Social Skills & Pragmatic Language in Children
Difficulty with pragmatic language can exist independently, in combination with other language problems, or as part of another diagnosis such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Online Therapy can help.
What are social skills?
Social skills (or pragmatic language) are the skills we use to interact and communicate with others. Social skills include spoken language and nonverbal communication such as gestures and facial expressions. It involves knowing how to behave in social situations and understand both written and implied rules when communicating with others. Sometimes a child has trouble understanding how to use pragmatic language or social skills properly. The specific cause of a pragmatic language disorder is unknown.
How can I tell if my child has a problem with social skills or pragmatic language?
If a child has difficulties with social skills, they might exhibit the following symptoms:
- Have trouble maintaining eye contact
- Have a problem taking turns during a conversation
- Struggling to stay on topic during conversation
- Find it challenging to communicate effectively with strangers
- Have difficulty understanding social situations
- Not understanding jokes and figurative language
- Talk about a favorite topic without noticing that the listener isn’t interested
- Have a hard time predicting or understanding others’ actions
- Use an unusual monotone or sing-song tone of voice
If you notice any of these early signs, contact your child’s pediatrician and ask to make an appointment to assess for social communication disorder/pragmatic language disorders.
What type of therapy is recommended for social communication disorder and pragmatic language disorder?
If your child has difficulties with social skills and their pediatrician has examined them, speech therapy is often recommended to treat the problem. The speech-language pathologist can be a great coach to help the child improve pragmatic language skills and for the parent to facilitate pragmatic language across environments.
Our assessment involves questionnaires and interviews with the parents and learning more about the child’s storytelling, problem-solving, pragmatic language, social-emotional development, and executive functions. The treatment program will be based on your child’s needs and goals.
Online Evaluations & Treatment From the Comfort of Your Home
We’ll take the time to properly diagnose your child’s communication issues.
We have a variety of tools that we can use to identify your child’s specific areas of need. Speech-language evaluations may consist of reviewing educational and medical history, clinical observation, and interviews with caregivers. With a proper diagnosis, your child can receive targeted speech therapy to reduce or eliminate communication issues.
We care about helping children make measurable improvements.
Treatment goals will be set by your speech-language pathologist to create meaningful outcomes that achieve real-life improvement. Several of our therapists have teaching certificates. We understand the best, most engaging ways to work with children of all ages.