At Victoria Speech and Language Centre, we are passionate about providing high-quality research-based therapy, with a strong focus on parent involvement, support and coaching.
We believe in a neurodiversity-affirming approach to intervention, which focuses on improving each individual’s quality of life, rather than promoting such neurotypical behaviours as eye-contact, turn taking and whole-body listening. As such, we aim to support young people with autism to be themselves, to learn and advocate about their own way of communicating and also to make sense of non-autistic people’s interactive behaviour. We avoid the use of functioning labels and understand how misleading, degrading and inaccurate they can be. We see the value in everyone.
Speech and language therapy can be an excellent addition or alternative to your child’s behaviour intervention program. In a person-centred approach, we will explore your child’s strengths and challenges, then develop a program of intervention tailored to their individual needs, drawing from a variety of models, depending on the age of the child and their developmental and language levels. We will also place great emphasis on developing self-awareness, self-esteem and self-advocacy skills.
In addition, we support families to advocate for neurodiversity acceptance and accommodations within the school system, through reports, contributions to IEPs and help with transitions and education/employment planning.
We provide an initial complimentary consultation to discuss how we can be of help to your child and your family.
For children under 6 years old, we strive to provide developmental, child-centered, play-based intervention which focuses on relationship-building through natural, everyday scenarios and interactions.
For children aged 5 years and older, we create individualized goals based on a thorough case history and assessment of each individual’s strengths and challenges, as well as each family’s needs and priorities. We treat articulation (speech sounds), receptive and expressive language, social communication, higher level skills such as figurative language, narrative structure and literacy skills, self-care support needs, increasing independence in self-care skills, fine and gross motor skills, developing emotional regulation skills, sensory processing differences etc., all within a person-centred, neurodiversity-affirming framework, with ongoing emphasis on the development of self-awareness, self-esteem and self-advocacy skills.
Our peer groups offer a neurodiversity-affirming safe space for young people to be themselves and connect with like-minded peers. We aim to develop self-understanding, self-esteem and self advocacy skills, while also exploring a range of social interaction strategies, accommodations and supports to meet each individual’s evolving needs.
Our groups seek to avoid terms and concepts that “normalize” or “cure” autistic behaviour. Our approach is person-centred approach and neurodiversity-affirming so that rather than insisting on a homogenous communication ideal, we explore each individual’s motivation and own communicative preferences as well as investigating how understanding and interpreting others’ perceptions can help us achieve our own social, academic and life goals (including school work, friends and family relationships, higher education and workplace).
Group activities begin with exploring each individual’s own thoughts, feelings and wants around social interaction, as well as exploring the benefits of understanding neurotypical norms of communication, behaviour and culture. We then experiment with different strategies which can be used to make sense of other people’s thoughts, feelings, behaviour and expectations.
See our Peer Groups page for more information here.
For adults, we strive to provide client-centered, holistic, and evidence-based intervention. All goals are developed in collaboration with the client in order to promote engagement in meaningful occupations. Occupational therapists can complete a standardized assessment of sensory processing differences, which can then be reviewed in depth with the client and used to develop strategies for sensory regulation, as well as developing self-esteem, self-awareness, and self-advocacy skills. Through client interviews, we can explore strategies and support for any daily occupation that is important to you, e.g. self-care tasks, work/volunteering, doing laundry, socialization, cooking, living independently, community navigation, occupational balance, etc.
