Expert Care for Communication, Speech, Swallowing, and Hearing
Speech delays, communication difficulties after stroke, swallowing problems, hearing loss, or stuttering profoundly affect quality of life and connection. Our speech-language therapists and audiologists provide comprehensive assessment and treatment for communication disorders, swallowing problems, and hearing loss across all ages. Expert evidence-based therapy is available right here.
Our Audiologist & Speech Therapists
Professional Disclaimer: This information is for educational purposes and does not replace professional speech-language pathology or audiology assessment and treatment. Communication and hearing disorders require evaluation by qualified registered professionals. Please consult with HPCSA-registered speech-language therapists and audiologists for comprehensive assessment and evidence-based treatment recommendations. For medical emergencies including choking or inability to breathe, call emergency services immediately.
What Conditions and Concerns Do Our Therapists Address?
Speech-language therapy and audiology address vast range of communication, swallowing, and hearing disorders across lifespan.
Childhood Speech and Language Disorders
Speech Sound Disorders
Articulation Disorders
Child produces specific speech sounds incorrectly, “wabbit” for “rabbit” (substituting w for r), “thun” for “sun” (fronting, moving sounds forward in mouth), omitting sounds (“ca” for “cat”). Most children master all speech sounds by age 7-8. Persistent articulation errors beyond expected age require therapy. Articulation therapy teaches correct sound production through modelling, practice, and gradually increasing complexity (sounds in isolation, syllables, words, sentences, conversation).
Phonological Disorders
Patterns of sound errors affecting multiple sounds, fronting (all back sounds moved forward), stopping (fricatives like “s” or “f” replaced with stops like “t”), cluster reduction (“top” for “stop”), final consonant deletion (“ca” for “cat”). Phonological therapy addresses error patterns rather than individual sounds, producing broader improvement more efficiently.
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)
Neurological disorder affecting motor planning for speech. Children with CAS know what they want to say but their brains struggle to send correct signals to speech muscles. Characteristics include inconsistent errors (saying words differently each time), difficulty sequencing sounds in words, groping for sounds (visible struggle), and prosody problems (unusual rhythm and stress). CAS is serious, without intensive therapy, speech remains severely impaired. CAS requires specialised intensive therapy (frequent sessions using specific motor-learning approaches).
Language Disorders
Receptive Language Disorder
Difficulty understanding language, following directions, understanding questions, comprehending stories, understanding vocabulary and grammar. Children with receptive language disorders seem confused, give inappropriate responses, struggle academically because they don’t understand instruction. Receptive language therapy teaches comprehension strategies, vocabulary building, and understanding grammatical structures.
Expressive Language Disorder
Difficulty using language to express ideas, limited vocabulary, grammatical errors, difficulty forming sentences, trouble finding words, difficulty organizing narratives. Children with expressive disorders know what they want to say but cannot express it clearly. Expressive language therapy builds vocabulary, teaches sentence structures, and improves narrative skills.
Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder
Both understanding and using language are impaired, most severe language disorders affecting all language aspects.
Language Delays vs. Language Disorders
Language delay means development is slower than typical but following normal sequence. Language disorder means development is atypical, qualitatively different patterns, not just slower. Distinction affects prognosis and treatment approach.
Late Talkers
Children not speaking by age 2-2.5 years. Some late talkers “catch up” without intervention (late bloomers), but significant percentage have persistent language disorders. Early assessment determines who needs intervention preventing academic and social problems.
Autism Spectrum Disorder Communication
Many children with autism have significant communication challenges including delayed language development or no speech at all, echolalia (repeating heard phrases), difficulty with social communication (turn-taking, topic maintenance, understanding non-literal language), unusual prosody (robotic or sing-song speech quality), and pragmatic language difficulties (understanding social rules of communication).
Therapy for children with autism addresses social communication skills, functional communication (requesting needs, commenting, answering questions), joint attention (shared focus with communication partners), play skills (foundation for language), and sometimes AAC when speech is severely limited or absent.
Selective Mutism
Anxiety disorder where children speak normally in certain settings (home) but are completely silent in others (school). Not shyness or defiance, severe anxiety prevents speaking. Treatment involves anxiety reduction, gradual exposure, positive reinforcement, and coordination with psychologists treating underlying anxiety.
Fluency Disorders (Stuttering in Children)
Stuttering begins typically between ages 2-5. Characteristics include repetitions (“b-b-b-ball”), prolongations (“sssssun”), blocks (getting stuck, no sound comes out), and secondary behaviours (eye blinking, head movements, avoidance of speaking). About 5% of children stutter; 75-80% recover naturally, but 20-25% develop persistent stuttering.
Early intervention for preschool stuttering is highly effective, parent-delivered therapy programmes (Lidcombe Programme, others) significantly increase recovery rates when started early. School-age and older children who stutter require different approaches addressing both fluency techniques and emotional impact of stuttering.
Cleft Lip and Palate
Children born with cleft palate have structural problems affecting speech including velopharyngeal dysfunction (air escaping through nose during speech causing hypernasal speech), articulation difficulties (difficulty producing certain sounds due to structural differences), resonance problems, and sometimes hearing loss (related to chronic ear infections common with cleft palate).
Speech therapy for cleft palate addresses articulation errors, teaches compensatory techniques, monitors for velopharyngeal insufficiency requiring surgical intervention, and coordinates with cleft team (surgeons, orthodontists, audiologists, social workers).
Cerebral Palsy Communication
Cerebral palsy commonly affects communication including dysarthria (speech muscle weakness/incoordination, speech may be slow, slurred, difficult to understand), language delays (from associated cognitive impairments), swallowing difficulties (dysphagia), drooling (affecting social acceptance), and sometimes complete inability to speak requiring AAC.
Therapy addresses speech intelligibility when possible, develops AAC systems when speech is too impaired, treats swallowing/feeding difficulties, and supports communication development throughout childhood.
Down Syndrome Communication
Children with Down syndrome typically have speech and language delays including receptive language generally stronger than expressive language, speech intelligibility problems (muscle weakness, hearing loss, oral motor difficulties), and overall developmental delays affecting all areas including communication.
Therapy supports language development at child’s pace, addresses speech intelligibility, treats hearing loss (very common in Down syndrome), and sometimes introduces AAC supporting expressive language whilst speech develops.
Adult Communication Disorders
Aphasia (Post-Stroke Language Loss)
Stroke commonly damages brain areas controlling language causing aphasia, impaired ability to understand language, speak, read, or write despite intact intelligence and knowing what you want to say. This is devastating, suddenly losing ability to communicate, feeling trapped inside your own mind, frustrating attempts to speak producing wrong words or incomprehensible sounds.
Types of Aphasia:
Broca’s Aphasia (Non-Fluent Aphasia):
Speaking is effortful, slow, telegraphic (omitting small words, “Go store” instead of “I’m going to the store”). Understanding is relatively preserved. Patients know what they want to say but cannot produce words fluently. Extremely frustrating.
Wernicke’s Aphasia (Fluent Aphasia):
Speaking is fluent but meaningless, long sentences containing jargon, made-up words (neologisms), word substitutions (paraphasias). Comprehension is severely impaired, patients don’t understand others or realize their own speech is meaningless. Less awareness of deficit than Broca’s.
Global Aphasia:
Severe impairment of all language functions, cannot speak, understand, read, or write. Most severe aphasia typically from large left hemisphere strokes.
Anomic Aphasia:
Primary difficulty finding words (anomia). Fluent speech but frequent pauses searching for words, circumlocution (talking around forgotten words), frustration. Comprehension preserved.
Other aphasia types exist (conduction aphasia, transcortical aphasias) with different patterns of impairment.
Aphasia Therapy:
Intensive speech-language therapy, particularly in early months after stroke, produces significant improvement for many patients. Therapy approaches include impairment-based therapy (working directly on language skills, naming, comprehension, sentence production), functional communication therapy (achieving communication goals using any means, gestures, drawing, residual speech), script training (intensive practice of personally relevant phrases enabling functional communication in specific situations), constraint-induced aphasia therapy (forcing use of verbal communication by constraining alternative modalities), and group therapy (practicing communication in social contexts, mutual support with other people with aphasia).
Recovery varies, some patients recover completely, many improve substantially, some have persistent severe aphasia. Therapy doesn’t cure aphasia but maximizes recovery and develops compensatory strategies.
Apraxia of Speech (Acquired):
Motor planning disorder affecting speech production after stroke or brain injury. Patients know what they want to say, speech muscles aren’t paralyzed, but brain cannot coordinate precise movements for speech. Characteristics include groping for sounds, inconsistent errors, difficulty with longer/more complex words, and intact comprehension. Apraxia requires intensive therapy using motor-learning principles.
Dysarthria:
Weakness, paralysis, or incoordination of speech muscles from stroke, brain injury, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, MS, or other neurological conditions. Speech may be slurred, slow, quiet, strained, breathy, or hypernasal. Unlike aphasia, language is intact, problem is physical speech production.
Dysarthria therapy includes strengthening exercises (when weakness is primary problem), compensatory strategies (speaking more slowly, exaggerating articulation), amplification devices (when voice is too quiet), and AAC when speech becomes unintelligible despite therapy.
Cognitive-Communication Disorders:
Brain injury, dementia, and other conditions cause cognitive impairments affecting communication including attention deficits (difficulty following conversations, losing train of thought), memory problems (forgetting what was just said, repeating questions), executive function impairments (difficulty organizing thoughts, problem-solving, abstract thinking), and pragmatic problems (tangential speech, inappropriate comments, difficulty maintaining topics).
Therapy addresses underlying cognitive impairments (attention training, memory strategies) and teaches compensatory strategies enabling functional communication despite cognitive limitations.
Voice Disorders
Vocal Nodules/Polyps:
Benign growths on vocal cords from vocal abuse/misuse, yelling, chronic throat clearing, speaking too loudly. Cause hoarseness, vocal fatigue, breathy voice. Treatment involves voice therapy teaching healthy vocal behaviours, sometimes requiring surgical removal if nodules don’t resolve with therapy alone.
Vocal Cord Paralysis:
One or both vocal cords paralyzed from nerve damage (surgical complication, viral infections, tumours, stroke). Unilateral paralysis causes breathy weak voice and sometimes swallowing problems (aspiration risk). Bilateral paralysis causes breathing problems, potentially life-threatening. Treatment includes voice therapy, sometimes surgical procedures improving voice and airway safety.
Muscle Tension Dysphonia:
Excessive muscle tension during voicing causing strained, effortful voice. No structural vocal cord abnormality, problem is muscle tension patterns. Voice therapy using relaxation techniques, reducing tension, establishing healthy voicing resolves most cases.
Spasmodic Dysphonia:
Neurological voice disorder causing voice breaks, strained-strangled voice quality, or breathy voice from involuntary vocal cord spasms. Very disabling, speaking becomes effortful struggle. Treatment includes Botox injections into vocal cord muscles (temporary relief) combined with voice therapy.
Professional Voice Users:
Teachers, singers, call centre workers, clergy, lawyers depend on voices professionally. Voice problems threaten livelihoods. We provide vocal health education, voice therapy addressing occupational vocal strain, and amplification recommendations reducing vocal demands.
Laryngectomy Rehabilitation:
Total laryngectomy (voice box removal) for laryngeal cancer eliminates voice and requires breathing through permanent neck stoma. Speech-language therapists teach alternative voice methods including oesophageal speech (air from oesophagus creates voice, difficult to learn), tracheoesophageal speech (surgical voice prosthesis in stoma, produces most natural speech), and electrolarynx (hand-held device creating mechanical voice, easiest but most artificial sound).
Dysphagia (Swallowing Disorders)
Post-Stroke Dysphagia:
40-70% of stroke patients have swallowing problems, food/liquid going down the wrong way, entering lungs (aspiration) causing pneumonia, choking, coughing during eating, or silent aspiration (aspiration without coughing, most dangerous because undetected). Dysphagia therapy includes swallowing exercises strengthening swallow muscles, compensatory strategies (head positions, swallow manoeuvres reducing aspiration), diet modifications (altering food textures, thickening liquids), and safe feeding techniques.
Many stroke patients’ swallowing improves with therapy, but some have persistent dysphagia requiring long-term diet modifications or alternative feeding (feeding tubes).
Progressive Neurological Disease Dysphagia:
Parkinson’s disease, ALS, MS, dementia cause progressive swallowing deterioration. Therapy focuses on maintaining safe swallowing as long as possible, teaching compensatory strategies, educating about warning signs of unsafe swallowing, and supporting transitions to alternative nutrition when oral feeding becomes unsafe.
Head and Neck Cancer Dysphagia:
Surgery and radiation for head and neck cancer damage swallowing structures causing severe persistent dysphagia. Pre-treatment swallow exercises (prehabilitation) reduce severity, and post-treatment intensive therapy improves swallowing, but many patients have permanent modifications.
Oesophageal Dysphagia:
Problems with oesophagus (not oral/pharyngeal swallowing). Food gets stuck, painful swallowing. Requires medical treatment (ENT or gastroenterology) with speech therapy role limited to education and compensatory strategies.
Paediatric Feeding/Swallowing Disorders:
Infants and children with cleft palate, cerebral palsy, prematurity, developmental delays, or failure to thrive sometimes have feeding difficulties. Paediatric feeding therapy addresses oral motor skills, transitioning between food textures, behavioural feeding problems (refusal, selectivity), and supporting safe efficient feeding enabling adequate nutrition.
Hearing Loss and Disorders
Types of Hearing Loss:
Conductive Hearing Loss:
Problem in outer or middle ear preventing sound reaching inner ear. Causes include ear infections (otitis media, very common in children), fluid in middle ear, perforated eardrum, otosclerosis (abnormal bone growth), or earwax blockage. Conductive hearing loss is often medically/surgically treatable, antibiotics for infection, tubes for chronic fluid, surgery for otosclerosis or perforations.
Sensorineural Hearing Loss:
Damage to inner ear (cochlea) or hearing nerve. Causes include age-related hearing loss (presbycusis, most common), noise exposure (occupational noise, loud music), genetic factors, infections (meningitis, measles), ototoxic medications (certain antibiotics, chemotherapy), Ménière’s disease, acoustic neuroma, and head trauma. Sensorineural hearing loss is permanent, cannot be medically/surgically cured. Hearing aids or cochlear implants are treatment.
Mixed Hearing Loss:
Both conductive and sensorineural components, middle ear problem plus inner ear damage.
Age-Related Hearing Loss:
Gradual hearing loss with aging, typically high-frequency sounds affected first. Causes difficulty hearing in noise, understanding speech (especially women’s and children’s voices), hearing consonants (making speech sound mumbled). Very common, affects 30-40% of people over 65, 80% over 80. Hearing aids dramatically improve communication and quality of life but many people resist hearing aids due to vanity, cost, or believing hearing loss is inevitable normal aging not worth treating.
Noise-Induced Hearing Loss:
Permanent hearing loss from loud noise exposure, occupational (construction, mining, manufacturing, military), recreational (concerts, clubs, loud music through headphones), or acute (explosions, gunshots). Preventable through hearing protection but common. Affects high frequencies first, causing difficulty hearing speech in noise.
Childhood Hearing Loss:
Congenital Hearing Loss:
Present at birth from genetic factors (50% of childhood hearing loss), infections during pregnancy (rubella, CMV, toxoplasmosis), prematurity and NICU complications, structural abnormalities, or unknown causes. Detected through newborn hearing screening, requires immediate intervention (hearing aids, cochlear implants, early intervention therapy) enabling language development. With early detection and intervention, deaf/hard-of-hearing children develop normal language and succeed academically.
Acquired Childhood Hearing Loss:
Develops after birth from infections (meningitis, can cause profound hearing loss), head trauma, ototoxic medications, chronic ear infections, or progressive genetic conditions. Requires ongoing hearing monitoring, intervention with hearing aids or cochlear implants, speech-language therapy addressing language development, and educational support.
Tinnitus:
Ringing, buzzing, hissing, clicking sounds heard in ears or head without external sound source. Affects 10-15% of adults, distressing for many. Causes include noise exposure, hearing loss, medications, TMJ disorders, head/neck injuries, or unknown causes. No cure exists but tinnitus management (sound therapy, counselling, hearing aids, CBT) reduces distress.
Balance Disorders:
Inner ear contains vestibular system controlling balance. Vestibular disorders cause dizziness, vertigo (spinning sensation), imbalance, nausea, falls. Causes include benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV, most common, treated with repositioning manoeuvres), vestibular neuritis, Ménière’s disease, and others. Audiologists assess vestibular function, treat BPPV, and refer to ENT or neurology for medical management when needed.
Understanding Speech-Language Therapy & Audiology
Speech-language therapy (speech therapy) and audiology (hearing healthcare) are distinct but related professions addressing communication and hearing.
Speech-Language Therapists (Speech-Language Pathologists) are healthcare professionals who’ve completed four-year bachelor’s degrees in Speech-Language Pathology plus supervised clinical practice. They’re registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) as speech-language therapists. They assess and treat communication disorders including speech sound disorders (articulation problems, phonological disorders, producing speech sounds incorrectly), language disorders (receptive language, understanding language; expressive language, using language to communicate), fluency disorders (stuttering, cluttering), voice disorders (hoarseness, vocal strain, voice loss), social communication disorders (pragmatic language problems, difficulty with conversation and social interaction), and cognitive-communication disorders (problems with memory, attention, problem-solving affecting communication after brain injury or stroke).
Beyond communication, speech-language therapists are experts in swallowing and feeding, assessing and treating dysphagia (swallowing disorders) that can cause choking, aspiration pneumonia, malnutrition, and dehydration.
Audiologists are hearing healthcare professionals who’ve completed four-year degrees in Audiology plus supervised clinical practice. They’re registered with HPCSA as audiologists. They assess and treat hearing disorders including conducting hearing tests (audiometry) across all ages from newborns to elderly, diagnosing hearing loss (conductive, sensorineural, mixed), fitting and managing hearing aids and assistive listening devices, providing tinnitus assessment and management, assessing balance disorders (vestibular system closely connected to hearing), conducting newborn hearing screening, monitoring hearing in at-risk populations, and providing hearing conservation and protection education.
Communication is fundamental to human connection.
Through speech, language, and hearing, we express needs and desires, learn and share knowledge, build relationships and intimacy, participate in education and employment, experience culture and entertainment, and develop identity and sense of self. When communication is impaired, whether you cannot produce speech sounds correctly, cannot find words to express thoughts, cannot understand what others say, cannot hear conversations, or cannot swallow safely, every aspect of life is affected.
Children with speech and language delays fall behind academically, struggle socially, experience bullying and isolation, develop behavioural problems from frustration, and face lifelong educational and employment limitations when delays aren’t addressed early. Adults who lose communication abilities after stroke or brain injury experience devastating isolation, depression, loss of independence, and inability to return to work or previous lives. People with untreated hearing loss withdraw socially, experience cognitive decline, develop depression, face employment difficulties, and lose quality of life.
Early intervention matters profoundly.
Children’s brains are most plastic in early years, speech and language therapy in preschool years produces better outcomes than waiting until school age. Post-stroke communication rehabilitation is most effective when intensive therapy begins early. Hearing loss in children, if undetected and untreated, causes permanent language delays and learning disabilities, but early detection and intervention (hearing aids, cochlear implants, therapy) enables normal language development.
Many people delay seeking help for communication and hearing problems due to shame (parents blaming themselves for child’s delays, adults embarrassed about communication difficulties), denial (hoping child will “catch up” without intervention, minimizing severity of problems), lack of awareness (not realizing therapy can help, not knowing these services exist), or cost concerns (therapy can be expensive, hearing aids are costly).
This delay causes unnecessary suffering and poorer outcomes. If you or your child has communication or hearing difficulties, seek professional assessment. Early intervention prevents problems becoming permanent disabilities.
Your Speech & Hearing Therapy Team
When you’re facing heart or chest surgery, you’re not just seeing one doctor, you’re being cared for by an entire team of specialists working together for your wellbeing.
Speech-Language Therapists
Speech-Language Therapists (Speech-Language Pathologists) have completed four-year Bachelor of Speech-Language Pathology degrees including extensive supervised clinical placements. They’re registered with HPCSA as speech-language therapists and audiologists. Some have postgraduate qualifications (honours, master’s degrees) in specialized areas (paediatric speech-language therapy, dysphagia, voice, fluency).
Audiologists
have completed four-year Bachelor of Audiology degrees including supervised clinical placements. They’re registered with HPCSA as audiologists. They’re experts in hearing assessment, hearing aid fitting, and auditory rehabilitation.
Some professionals are dual-qualified as both speech-language therapists and audiologists, having completed integrated degrees covering both disciplines.
Collaborating Professionals
Collaborating Professionals include ENT surgeons treating medical/surgical problems affecting speech, swallowing, voice, and hearing; neurologists managing neurological conditions affecting communication; paediatricians coordinating child development; psychologists addressing emotional/behavioural aspects; teachers supporting children’s educational needs; and other specialists ensuring comprehensive care.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Common Concerns and Honest Answers
Some late talkers do catch up without intervention, but many don't. Early assessment determines who needs therapy. Waiting causes no harm for children who'd catch up anyway, but delays intervention for children with true language disorders, causing academic and social problems. Assessment provides answers, therapist can tell you whether your child needs therapy or monitoring. Delaying assessment risks missing critical early intervention window.
No. Therapy teaches skills enabling independent communication, opposite of creating dependency. Children receiving therapy learn communication skills they weren't developing naturally. Without therapy, children with genuine speech-language disorders don't "catch up", they fall further behind. Therapy prevents long-term dependency (special education, social services) by addressing problems early when most treatable.
Early intervention is highly effective. Therapy for young children is delivered through play-based activities and parent coaching. Therapists teach parents strategies implemented during daily routines (feeding, bathing, playing), thousands of learning opportunities daily. Young children's brains are most plastic, early intervention produces better outcomes than waiting until school age.
Varies enormously, depends on diagnosis, severity, age started therapy, consistency of intervention, and individual factors. Simple articulation disorders might resolve in months. Severe language disorders require years of therapy. Some children achieve completely normal communication; others improve substantially but have persistent mild difficulties. Your therapist provides prognosis based on assessment.
Honest answer: recovery varies enormously. Some stroke survivors recover completely; others have persistent aphasia. Intensive therapy, particularly early after stroke, maximizes recovery. Most improvement occurs in first 6-12 months, but continued improvement is possible for years. Even when complete recovery doesn't occur, therapy develops compensatory strategies enabling functional communication despite persistent deficits. Hope exists, therapy helps.
Choking isn't normal aging, it indicates dysphagia requiring assessment. Swallowing problems cause aspiration pneumonia, malnutrition, dehydration, and death. Don't dismiss choking as "just getting old", seek evaluation. Dysphagia often can be managed with diet modifications, swallowing strategies, and exercises preventing life-threatening complications.
Yes. Adult stuttering therapy differs from childhood approaches, focusing on stuttering modification (managing stuttering to make it less effortful), reducing avoidance and fear, improving confidence, and acceptance approaches. Therapy doesn't necessarily eliminate stuttering but can significantly reduce severity, anxiety, and social impact, improving quality of life. Many adults benefit from therapy even after decades of stuttering.
No, hearing aids amplify and clarify sound but don't perfectly restore normal hearing. Modern digital hearing aids are sophisticated with excellent technology, but they cannot completely replicate normal hearing, particularly in very noisy environments. However, hearing aids dramatically improve communication and quality of life compared to untreated hearing loss. Realistic expectations and proper fitting are crucial, hearing aids help enormously but aren't perfect.
Not necessarily. Screening identifies babies at risk, requiring diagnostic follow-up testing determining whether hearing loss exists and its severity. Many babies who don't pass screening have normal hearing when fully tested (initial failure from vernix in ears, middle ear fluid, screening test factors). However, some babies do have confirmed hearing loss, requiring immediate intervention (hearing aids, cochlear implants, early intervention) enabling normal language development. Don't skip follow-up testing, early detection and intervention are crucial.
No. Therapy doesn't cure neurological or genetic conditions. However, therapy dramatically improves communication despite these conditions. Children with autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and other conditions benefit enormously from speech-language therapy, developing functional communication (speech or AAC), improving language skills, treating feeding/swallowing problems. Therapy maximises each child's potential within their specific challenges.
Therapy is professional healthcare requiring extensive university education, clinical training, registration, ongoing continuing education, materials and equipment, and time-intensive individualized treatment. Therapists have eight-year training (degree plus supervised practice) and specialized expertise. Whilst costs are significant, investment in communication prevents long-term costs of untreated problems (academic failure, unemployment, social services, reduced quality of life).
Typically yes, but with limits, session numbers, co-payments, pre-authorisation requirements. Coverage for communication disorders is generally better than hearing aids (which are often not covered or minimally covered). Verify your specific benefits. Some conditions (developmental delays, post-stroke rehabilitation) are covered more comprehensively than others (accent modification, performance enhancement).