CAP Speech Therapy

I was skeptical about speech therapy after our son A.‘s negative experience of physical therapy engendered a strong aversion to therapeutic relationships and clinical settings. But when Melanie was offering a free screening, we decided to go and see what it was like since we had concerns about his language and social skills. She handled A. (3 yrs old) so well that he developed an immediate affection for her and cooperated with her. She was much more attentive to background information from us than other therapists we have known. Since Melanie made such a good first impression, we paid for an assessment and then therapy. It helped enormously that CAP Speech Therapy works in the child’s natural environment, so A. did not have to deal with going to a clinical setting. We may have avoided therapy rather than subject him to another clinical setting, but he has done well meeting in libraries and parks.
The improvements in A. after beginning therapy have been rapid and dramatic. He has become significantly more verbally expressive and his social skills are improving. Before starting therapy, we had tried to play board games with him, but it went nowhere. After therapy began, he became interested in playing games. Before therapy, he had developed serious anxiety surrounding social events (esp birthday parties and the like). Speech therapy focused on social skills and helped him overcome this anxiety so that the first birthday party after starting therapy (about two months in) went delightfully smoothly. He had also developed an anxiety about trains and transportation generally, and CAP speech therapy has worked remarkable improvement there too. He used to refuse to answer wh-​questions, but now does so with increasing confidence and less echolalia. He used to speak to no one outside his parents, but is now speaking more and more to other people. We had tried on our own to deal with all these issues, but made little progress. Melanie’s intervention has produced dramatic results in a short amount of time. A. generalizes the results of speech therapy in significant measure because Melanie has the foresight to involve other people (tutors, assistants) in his therapy and to encourage group play dates with therapy to foster interpersonal skills. And all this happens in a natural rather than clinical environment. Consequently, the benefits of therapy are not specific to A.‘s relationship with Melanie, but extend throughout his life. It also helps that Melanie identifies areas for us to work on at home with specific instructions on what to do.
Melanie is an excellent and dedicated speech therapist who has deep knowledge and wide experience. She clearly strives to understand what is happening in the mind of the child she is helping and creatively devises various strategies to elicit improvement. Most importantly, her interventions have proven to be highly effective.

I have two daughters with very different needs and Melanie has championed for both of them!
My eldest daughter was born with Down Syndrome and had significant feeding issues. Traditional methods and by the book approaches were just not working. Melanie rose to the occasion and attempted bold out of the box exercises. We started seeing real improvement with her feeding and texture sensitivities in just a few short months! Angelina is now eating on her own!
My youngest daughter has a vision deficit causing reading comprehension issues. The school disagreed with the doctor’s diagnoses and wanted my daughter diagnosed with a learning disability — so I called Melanie. She wasn’t about to let that happen without getting down to the root of the problem. She evaluated Lana and through her tests agreed with the doctor’s original diagnoses that my daughter’s struggle was vision related. This gave me tremendous hope in pursing my original path to get her vision corrected rather than assume she had a learning disability.
I can’t say enough good things about Melanie and CAP Speech Therapy. She brings a level of class and integrity that you just can’t find anywhere else!