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MANHATTAN, NYC SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR TEENS

SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR TEENS

MANHATTAN, NYC SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR TEENS

SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR TEENS
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Speech-Language Pathologists and Therapists We Work With Travel To Your Manhattan, NYC Home ! Private Pay In-Person and Remote Speech Language Therapy for Teens | Free Consultations & Meet-and-Greets with Our Professionals | No Contracts, Pay As You Go!

Speech-Language Pathologists and Therapists We Work With Travel To Your Manhattan, NYC Home ! Private Pay In-Person and Remote Speech Language Therapy for Teens | Free Consultations & Meet-and-Greets with Our Professionals | No Contracts, Pay As You Go!
WE TRAVEL TO YOU THROUGHOUT MANHATTAN:
Battery Park City, Bowery, Carnegie Hill, Central Harlem, Central Midtown, Chelsea, Chinatown, Civic Center, Clinton, Columbus Circle, Cooperative Village, Diamond District, East Harlem, East Village, Financial District, Flatiron District, Garment District, Governors Island, Gramercy Park, Greenwich Village, Hamilton Heights, Harlem, Hell’s Kitchen, Hudson Square, Hudson Yards, Inwood, Kips Bay, Lenox Hill, Lincoln Square, Little Italy, Lower East Side, Manhattan Valley, Marble Hill, Meatpacking District, Midtown, Midtown East, Midtown South, Morningside Heights, Murray Hill, NoHo, NoLita, Peter Cooper Village, Roosevelt Island, Seaport District, SoHo, South Street Seaport, Stuyvesant Town, Sutton Place, Theatre District, Times Square, TriBeCa, Turtle Bay, Union Square, Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Washington Heights, Waterside Plaza, West Harlem, West Village, Yorkville.
We also travel to:
The Bronx, Riverdale, and Yonkers
Speech-Language Pathologists and Therapists We Work With

We travel to you, and we also offer remote services. Some of the speech-language pathologists we work with are trained in the Orton Gillingham approach. Many of the speech-language pathologists we work with are trained in literacy and offer support with decodingspelling, and reading fluency services. Our speech-language pathologists and therapists work with babies, toddlers, school-age students, and adults with expertise in:

Speech-Language Pathologists and Therapists We Work With

We travel to you, and we also offer remote services. Some of the speech-language pathologists we work with are trained in the Orton Gillingham approach. Many of the speech-language pathologists we work with are trained in literacy and offer support with decodingspelling, and reading fluency services. Our speech-language pathologists and therapists work with babiesThe speech-language pathologists and therapists we work with have expertise in working with babies, toddlers, school-age students, and adults with expertise in:

Why Choose Manhattan Letters?

At Manhattan Letters, we provide expert, one-on-one speech-language therapy tailored to the unique needs of teens. Whether your teen struggles with articulation, social communication, or expressive language, the experienced clinicians we work with are here to help them thrive

  1. Customized Therapy Plans – Every teen is unique. We create individualized treatment plans to address their specific speech, language, and communication goals.
  2. Experienced Speech-Language Pathologists – The licensed speech-language pathologists we work with specialize in teen speech therapy, helping with articulation, stuttering, social communication, and more.
  3. Convenient In-Home & Online Therapy – We offer flexible, private speech therapy at home or virtually, ensuring therapy fits into your busy schedule.
  4. Improving Everyday Communication – We focus on real-world communication skills, helping teens build confidence in social settings, school, and future career opportunities.
  5. Proven, Research-Based Methods – Our therapy techniques are evidence-based and designed to maximize progress in speech clarity, comprehension, and self-expression.
  6. Support for Social & Academic Success – We help teens develop strong conversation, problem-solving, and executive functioning skills, equipping them for success in school and beyond.
  7. A Supportive, Encouraging Environment – We create a safe, engaging space where teens feel empowered to communicate confidently and effectively.

Let Manhattan Letters connect your teen with expert speech-language therapy to help them speak, connect, and succeed. Contact us today to get started!

Training/Certifications
Training/Certifications
TESTIMONIALS

FANTASTIC!
Danya was fantastic. Consistent, dedicated, and reliable. She has a hectic schedule, I realize, and I appreciated what feedback she could offer. Thank you for being such a great resource.

- JB

Cathy has been excellent with us and our son. We will sorely miss her.
He has improved significantly with Cathy’s help. Cathy was a true partner with us, especially as we pursued additional help through our son’s school system.

- Enrico B.
About Our Founder
Presented at:

Language Development in the Pre-Teen and Teenage (Adolescent) Years

Understanding language and using it to express thoughts and feelings are two of the most crucial milestones in a child’s life. While children tend to develop new skills at different paces, most hit these milestones at their expected ages. But when a child’s language skills consistently fall behind his or her peers, it may be due to a developmental language disorderIndications that tweens and teens might struggle with their language can be apparent when they exhibit difficulties with their expressive, listening, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammatical structures, and social use. We also work with pre-teens and teens who continue to struggle with articulation—helping them refine speech clarity, reduce persistent sound errors, and build confidence in academic and social settings. Many middle and high schoolers also struggle with their executive function skills. Learn what is the link between executive functioning and language. Download our What is Executive Functioning Pamphlet!

Language development in the adolescent years is often less studied than in younger children. This is likely because of the misconception that pre-teens and teenagers have already fully acquired speech, language, and communication skills. But this is, in fact, not the case.  Speech-language therapy for pre-teens and teens is essential as they are still developing their vocabulary. Likewise, pre-teens and adolescents are expected to use more sophisticated forms of grammar and social language at school and when interacting with their peers.

This process of language acquisition continues to develop throughout secondary school and even into adulthood. For parents and educators, the important thing to remember about language development in pre-teens and teens is that their speech, language, and communication skills must continue to improve because they are highly correlated with reading, writing, and social cognition. Read SPELLTalk questions and answers about the language literacy network– which represents normal reading and writing processes.

One such condition is Social Communication Pragmatic Disorder (SCPD). Learn more about social communication pragmatic disorder, its symptoms, causes, and strategies parents can employ to support their child with this disorder.

Although there is a lot of variability in language development, there are certain milestones at every age that allow language and communication specialists to gauge a child’s skills. In very young children, these milestones include babbling for infants and combining words and using an average of 200-300 words for toddlers.

In the book, Language Development: An Introduction, these milestones are broken down, from a child’s first words to acquiring language skills throughout adulthood.

Teens

VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT IN PRE-TEENS

Pre-teens and teenagers continue to learn vocabulary in books, movies, social situations, and experiences. In middle school, there is a shift for students to acquire more advanced literacy skills. Students are expected to read and review a wide variety of texts as well as accomplish different types of writing tasks. Hence, it’s important for students to have a strong literacy foundation as they build background knowledge and vocabulary.

At school, middle school students can learn an average of seven to 10 new words every day. They also practice writing longer sentences, submit lengthier written work, and use more advanced grammar and vocabulary when writing and speaking with parents, teachers, and peers.

Reading and writing demands begin to increase as students move up in school. Middle school students are exposed to a larger variety of expository texts. They must learn to describe, explain, define, or clarify unfamiliar concepts and understand academic language.

Academic language is also known as decontextualized language, which refers to language that does not rely on context clues or shared background knowledge. Instead, decontextualized language relies on the construction of the meaning of the language as opposed to depending on physical context to express or communicate ideas. Hence, it is crucial that students are able to use exact syntax, grammar, and vocabulary other than what is currently available in expressing themselves. This is essential for academic success because school-based learning is focused on events and concepts outside of the classroom.

When students have less context or background knowledge about a topic they are learning about, it can present learning challenges. This is particularly true for children with attention and language-based learning difficulties. Students who struggle with reading comprehension and writing will find it difficult to tackle material with unfamiliar vocabulary, complex sentences, and abstract and advanced concepts. In addition, students must rely more on making inferences and predictions. Cultural factors also play an important role in linguistics. This is because children tend to learn from their surroundings.

Read about Building Vocabulary With Critical Thinking Skills and Comparing Two Established Multimedia Approaches for Teaching Vocabulary to Students with and Without Disabilities.

LEARNING DEVELOPMENT IN TEENS (11-13 YEARS OLD)

Metalinguistic (awareness of language) plays an important role when learning figurative language (metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, and symbolism) expressions.

  • Idioms (mode of expression) are mostly used to add dynamism and expression during storytelling or special circumstances as it explains a large or abstract idea succinctly.
  • Metaphors (figure of speech) help describe the object or action, which is not true in a literal sense but gives you the idea of making a comparison. It is mostly used in poetry and literature. A simile is a type of metaphor when something you compare appears to be like something else.
  • Proverbs (well-known sayings) use figurative language to describe a feeling or an idea.

At 13 years old, a student should be able to:

  • Understand and follow advanced spoken instructions that include a vast number of information, unfamiliar words, and complex grammar
  • “Get” common sayings in the right context
  • Identify and acknowledge a different point-of-view
  • Understands factual information but may still require support in processing information that requires inferring
  • Begins to acquire an understanding of sarcasm

GRAMMAR DEVELOPMENT AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Teens develop a better understanding of grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary, and social language use as their brains continue to develop. This also includes increased metalinguistic awareness and improved understanding of figurative language.

Between the ages of 13-18, a teenager learns to use (orally and in text) and understand longer sentences while using more sophisticated grammar and sentence structure. Socially, they are learning to acknowledge and understand another’s point of view.

Teens2

SOCIAL LANGUAGE IMPACT IN TEENS (13-18 YEARS OLD)

Peer interaction plays a huge role in teen development. Teens are developing social language skills. For instance;

  • They understand sarcasm (irony or mockery) from peers.
  • They are more expressive verbally towards their emotions and feelings.
  • Teenagers tend to argue and persuade their parents and peers.

According to Marilyn A. Nippold, teens can also suffer from language disorders frequently, but it is often overlooked. If a teenager has an underlying language disorder, a speech and language pathologist will need to examine the following:

Syntax 

  • Sentence length such as the use of low-frequency structure, i.e. from incomplete sentences to well-formulated utterances. It happens during the adolescence stage based on communication units (C-units) or terminable units (T-units). These units are ways speech-language pathologists can examine sentence length.
  • Subordination helps increase sentence length by joining ideas within sentences. These include using subordinating conjunctions like “although,” “as if,” “whenever,” and “while.”
  • Cohesion devices are words or phrases which help to integrate information in the text. Examples of these are “in conclusion,” “however,” and “therefore.”

Semantics

Vocabulary is subcategorized into two areas;

  • Literate lexicon consists of words used in textbooks, lectures, and seminars, etc. For example, verbs such as “interpret”, “concede”, and “predict,” etc., provide contextual support.
  • Figurative expressions are the use of similes, idioms, slang terms, ambiguity, sarcasm, metaphors, and proverbs. They are common in literature, newspapers, and magazines.

Pragmatic Development 

Pragmatics refer to the use of appropriate language in different social situations. A teenager struggling with language and communication may sometimes find it difficult to switch language styles based on the peer groups’ expectations.

They may find it difficult to comprehend:

  • Interpersonal negotiation to resolve any conflict among peers. Teenagers will handle each situation differently according to their level of understanding and interpretation, and they use their interpersonal negotiation strategies.
  • Slang expressions such as “goat” are used casually. The use of slang expressions increases with developmental changes during adolescence. However, boys and girls have different knowledge and use of slang expressions.

Adolescent language development is often overlooked. There’s a gradual and subtle shift and acquisition of more advanced spoken and written grammar, vocabulary, and social language use during teenage and even young adult years. Many teens who continuously struggle with reading, writing, and social skills might have undiagnosed language disorders. It’s important to have these teenagers’ linguistic skills evaluated by a licensed speech and language pathologist/therapist when working with a psychologist, who performs a neuropsychological evaluation.

MEET MANHATTAN LETTERS SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPISTS AND PATHOLOGISTS WHO TRAVEL TO YOUR HOME

2
Jennifer
M.S., CCC-SLP, TSSLD, SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST
Staff 14 1
Sholom
MA, CCC-SLP, TSSLD, SPEECH LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST
Staff 3
Valerie
M.S. CCC-SLP
BenI.1
Ben I.
M.S., CCC- SLP, TSSLD, SPEECH LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST
Theo1
Theo W.
M.S. CCC-SLP, Speech Language Pathologist
Staff 1 1
Alexandra C.
M.S., CCC-SLP, SPEECH LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST

FREE CONSULTATION!!!
Call: (347) 394-3485,
Text: (917) 426-8880
Email: manhattan@brooklynletters.com
(we respond to email right away!)

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