This June, Little Steps Speech & Language Clinic at Rego Park began accepting new patients. Little Steps specializes in treating speaking disorders as a result of neurological dysfunctions, cleft palette repairs, apraxia, feeding disorders, or Down Syndrome. They also offer treatment in a number of languages including Hebrew, Farsi, English, Spanish, and Russian, with plans to add Polish to their repertoire soon.
“We try to provide therapy in the native language of the child,” says Adelina Samuels, the owner of Little Steps and a bilingual specialist with 22 years experience.
The Rego Park location is fully remodeled and ready to service the Queens community.
“The office is spacious. It has a number of treatment rooms,” says Samuels. “It has the double-sided mirror so that the parent could be involved in the therapeutic intervention without staying in the room so the child wouldn’t preform for the parent.”
Little Steps offers numerous methods of treatments including the PROMPT method of speech therapy.
“We touch his or her face in the right places,” says Samuels. “We kind of map out the word for them.”
For parents wondering if speech therapy is right for their child, Samuels recommends paying close attention to their child’s budding language skills.
“What parents should look at is whether the child is communicative, whether the child is trying to communicate verbally rather than gesturally with others,” advises Samuels. “If the child doesn’t speak at least 25-30 clear words by the age of one and a half, the parents should seek help of the speech therapists.”
According to Samuels, many parents don’t realize their medical insurance covers speech therapy, so they wait until the Board of Education or Early Intervention can service their child. However, if you notice anything off about your child’s speech, it’s always best to seek treatment sooner, rather than later.
“Parents often falsely believe that the treatment should begin later on in the child’s life,” says Samuels. “On the contrary, they should start as soon as they see any type of issues (and the parents are the best to identify any types of issues).”
Little Steps is located at 63-70 Woodhaven Blvd., Rego Park. It is open Monday-Friday from 9am-6pm. To schedule an appointment, or to learn more about Little Steps, you can call 929-335-7707 or email littlestepsspeechny@gmail.com.
