The Communication Disorders Program provides services to clients who have one of the three following disorders: language disorders, auditory processing disorders, and speech disorders that affect speech flow such as stuttering and verbal dispraxia.
The mother tongue of children served is French.
With the exception of dysphasic children who are registered with the CAM, clients registered with the Communication Disorders Program must live in one of the following CSSS areas:
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Ahuntsic and Montreal North
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Parc extension and Côte-des-Neiges and Montreal)
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Pointe-de-l’Île (Mercier East/Anjou, Pointe aux Trembles/Montreal East, Rivières des Prairies) Saint-Léonard and Saint-Michel.
Language Disorders
Clients with speech impairments are characterized as having delayed language development and a cognitive-verbal disorder. Verbal expression as well as verbal comprehension disorders can occur at varying degrees. Children also experience decreased cognitive, behavioural, socioemotional, psychomotor, praxical and perceptual-sensorial abilities.
Children with severe dysphasia belong to this group of clients, and receive on-site services from the Communication Disorders Program’s team at the Charlevoix school location of the Montreal School board where the Centre Amis des Mots (CAM) is located.
Auditory Processing Disorders
Clients with an auditory processing disorder experience difficulties processing auditory information despite normal hearing sensitivity. This disorder is characterized by a loss of hearing abilities such as auditory discrimination, binaural integration, figure/background separation, auditory stimulus height and duration discrimination, recognition of non-verbal stimuli and temporal order. Auditory processing disorders are often combined with a language disorder and learning disability.
Clients with auditory processing disorders in the Communication Disorders Program are at least 7 years of age.
Speech Disorders
Clients with speech disorders who are admitted to this program have been diagnosed with stuttering or verbal dispraxia.
Stuttering is a neuromuscular speech disorder with symptoms that vary in type and prevalence. This disorder is characterized by a loss of a speech component known as fluidity.
It is an abnormal heightening of frequency and duration of disruptions in the flow of speech and can be combined with a language disorder.
Verbal dyspraxia is a neurological disorder that results in difficulties with planning, programming and coordinating the motor sequence that is necessary to producing speech sounds. Its symptoms vary according to the complexity of the speech task, severity of the disorder and the child’s age. Verbal dyspraxia is most often combined with a language disorder.
Centre Amis des Mots
The Communication Disorders Program serves clients who have a language impairment. The children are aged 4 to 9 years with severe dysphasia and have specific needs that require adjustment-rehabilitation interventions. The clients live in the Montreal, Laval, Laurentians, Lanaudière and Montérégie regions.