Developing children may have delays in speaking words, difficulty producing speech sounds that can be understood by others, or they may have difficulty with oral motor skills. Older children may have difficulties understanding directions, answering questions, telling a story or explaining something so that people can understand what they mean. Sometimes children need help learning to engage in social or play skills. These challenges can be very frustrating for a child and may impact their relationships with others, but they can be remedied with speech therapy.
The pediatric speech-language pathologist helps the child build communication skills. This happens in a variety of ways including, floor time, play therapy, using picture cards to work with non-verbal children, learning sign-language, building vocabulary, teaching sentence structure/grammar, or how to answer questions and social skills. When the child is able to use these communication skills in everyday life, they feel empowered and able to interact well with family and peers.
Meet our speech therapists
Rachel Atkinson
MS, CF-SLP
Speech Language Pathologist
Rachel has been with Innovative since August 2021. She holds a Master of Science in Speech Language Pathology from Portland State University. She specializes in Bilingualism, Speech Sound Disorders, and Childhood Apraxia of Speech.
Jamie Canteli
MS,CCC-SLP
Speech Language Pathologist
Jamie has been with Innovative since December 2019. She holds a Master of Science in Speech Language Pathology from Pacific University, Forest Grove. She specializes in Early Intervention, Fluency Disorders, Feeding Therapy, and Social Communication Disorders.
Natalie Cottrell
MS, CCC-SLP
Speech Language Pathologist
Natalie has been with Innovative since June 2020. She holds a Master of Science in Speech Language Pathology and a Bachelor of Arts in Early Childhood Development.
Alexandria McLeod
MS, CCC-SLP
Speech Language Pathologist
Alex has been with Innovative since July 2021. She holds a Master of Science in Speech Language Pathology from Duquesne University.
