Google review, Brooklyn LettersBrooklyn Letters

1139 Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn

4.9 56 reviews

  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Emily Matles ★★★★★ a week ago
    We would highly recommend Ally! Our son always asks about her, so very thankful to Brooklyn Letters for introducing us.
    ~ Emily, mom of Brooklyn 2 year old
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters T Ainsley ★★★★★ 5 months ago
    I cannot express how grateful and rewarding my experience with Brooklyn Letters has been. Her tutor Ms. Daria is so knowledgeable, amazing, kind and awesome. My daughter has made so much progress in Literacy and Math and it's all … More thanks to Ms. Daria. I know my daughter is sad that she can no longer work with Ms. Daria, as she looked forward to their sessions every week. Thank you again!
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Natalie Levon ★★★★★ 4 months ago
    Nicole has been an amazing therapist!! She played a tremendous role in our daughter’s speech progress and overall development. She has come such a long way and we are so happy with the therapy she received!
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Colin Peters ★★★★★ 6 months ago
    We could not be happier with the services Valerie provided! She is very thoughtful and knowledgeable and provided significant guidance to support our daughter's speech development outside of our scheduled sessions. She established … More a great working relationship with her, and she will definitely be missed! Your business model is amazing and it was an absolute pleasure working with Valerie. I've referred your organization and Valerie to the Executive Director of our daughter's school and friends/colleagues who are in need of speech therapy services.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Lil Amatore ★★★★★ 7 months ago
    Christina was absolutely wonderful. She went out of her way to win my son over and it worked. He looked forward to her visits and his speech improved so much under her care. She was super flexible and it’s clear she truly cares. We adore … More Christina and we’re going to miss her. Almost sad he improved so much! She’s simply amazing and we can’t say enough how great she is. I would recommend her services to anyone and everyone, without hesitation. Thank you so much for connecting us with her!
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Heather Liljengren ★★★★★ a year ago
    We cannot say enough good things about Effie, the ASL teacher, who was so engaged and effective with our 2 year old daughter from the very first session! Effie gladly included our whole family in the sessions! Her expertise and fantastic … More personality gave our daughter a way to communicate that she was so desperately seeking. The coordinators at Brooklyn Letters were so helpful and communicative…I would highly recommend their services!
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Brigid Bower ★★★★★ 11 months ago
    Samantha Dalmas was fantastic! We saw her for a feeding therapy evaluation and while she doesn’t think my daughter needs more feeding therapy sessions at this time, but she gave me lots of tips to try. If my daughter's doctors want … More to see more progress at her next appointment, I wouldn’t hesitate to reach out to Samantha again.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Duygu Başaran ★★★★★ 11 months ago
    Brooklyn Letters was recommended to me through a friend's speech therapist friend in NJ. The articulation evaluation for my daughter went well. We were pleased with Kristin's services.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Kelley Peters-Patel ★★★★★ a year ago
    Melissa was wonderful. Our daughter warmed to her immediately and by the time she left, had already started "practicing" some of the techniques Melissa had shown her. I will not hesitate at all to reach out to Melissa again, should … More the need arise.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters R Elmore ★★★★★ a year ago
    Aileen was INCREDIBLY helpful to us, both in assessing possible origins of my grandson's food aversions, as well as informing us of various available interventions to consider.
    I can’t thank you and Brooklyn Letters enough for connecting
    … More us with Aileen. In all our feeding therapy journey we have not gotten anything near the kind of benefit that we did from her. Her knowledge, professionalism, and responsiveness have put us on the path of progress with my grandson and has also made us feel genuinely well cared for.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Christine Weiher ★★★★★ 2 years ago
    We were amazed with Allison! She met my son at 2 1/2 years old, not speaking much at all, and over a computer, and she was able to develop a bond and friendship, so much so that he would look forward to his weekly computer time with Allison. … More I was not sure how the speech therapy would go- but we are so happy that we tried it out and continued. It allowed my son to gain confidence in his speech, make a new friend :), and also give him the skills and a bit of understanding of how to shape his mouth or where to place his tongue to make the proper sounds. We were extremely happy with Allison- she was fantastic to work with.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Andrea Saffady ★★★★★ 2 years ago
    My sessions with Karen have been extremely helpful. My speech has improved tremendously. In fact, I just finished 2 hours of conducting interviews with a consulting client via MS Teams and I have an upcoming conference call. Both my … More neurologist and neurosurgeon remarked about how good my speech is. Much of the day it is perfect, although I still have some rough spots when I get tired or speak too quickly. One of my granddaughters is a speech pathology student at Ithaca College. She sat in on 2 sessions while she was home for winter break, and she was very impressed with Karen.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Jacob B ★★★★★ 4 years ago
    We were delighted with Christie. First, and most importantly, our son made great strides under her guidance. So great, that we felt he no longer needed help! She was incredibly patient and kind with him and our son really responded to … More her. Christie was also great with me and my wife. She provided thorough and informative updates on our son's progress and which exercises she was using with him, so we could reinforce what she was teaching him. All in all, we had a fabulous experience with Christie and would highly recommend her.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Jessica C ★★★★★ a year ago
    Theo was wonderful and his work with my son has produced some progress. I am grateful for the services Theo provided.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Melissa Stevens ★★★★★ 2 years ago
    Highly recommend Jill. She is a total pleasure to work with. After a few months working with Jill, my son is reading above grade level and LOVES to read. Mission accomplished!
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Demet Evren ★★★★★ 2 years ago
    Paige was great and we had been really happy with her. I would highly recommend her! I recommend Brooklyn Letters to whomever asks for a speech therapist.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Jeizel Rosenthal ★★★★★ 2 years ago
    Isabel was WONDERFUL and our son absolutely adored her, and he is making great progress with his reading and writing.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Lesley Duval ★★★★★ 3 years ago
    Theo was fantastic with our 4yo son. We were very worried that his progress would fall off when we had to switch to remote sessions, but Theo kept our son happy and engaged through the screen. Highly highly recommend!
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Samantha Packard ★★★★★ 3 years ago
    We've been working with Theo from Brooklyn Letters for close to 4 months now and the results are apparent; our daughter has vastly improved her speech in a relatively short amount of time. We make "Theo Day" a celebration … More in our house with pancakes for breakfast, and the enthusiasm is matched in the sessions. Theo is fun, patient, professional, and caring, and he gives us the tools to take the lessons beyond the session. Thank you Theo, and Brooklyn Letters, for helping our daughter express herself.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Travis Ricca ★★★★★ 3 years ago
    I worked with Alina to enhance my pronunciation, tone, and pacing while communicating socially and in a work environment. She was great to work with and clear about goals and learning objectives. The improvement from day 1 has been tremendous! … More
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Enrico Bermudez ★★★★★ 3 years ago
    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.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Kayne Elisabeth Wilk ★★★★★ 4 years ago
    We really loved working with Alina, she is so fantastic. Patient yet firm, and determined the best course of action very clearly and succintly for us. And it all transitioned so well to Zoom as well. I will definitely be back in touch for … More services for our other child after summer break!
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Jen S ★★★★★ 4 years ago
    Vera was amazing! My 11 yo daughter made progress so quickly and really looked forward to her sessions. She was kept motivated and engaged.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters susie tofte ★★★★★ 3 years ago
    The work that Allison P. did with our daughter over the years has been invaluable to us. Our daughter had such a good relationship with Allison, and it allowed them to work really well together - even remotely these past 6 months. This … More year, Allison went above and beyond by helping us throughout the neuropsych eval we did, trying to re-open our daughter's IEP at her school, and eventually landing her at our chosen school. She was in contact with our daughter's teachers, with the neuropsychologist, and made herself available as a reference to speak on behalf of our daughter's learning differences.
    Allison stopped by our house last week to give our daughter cupcakes and say goodbye, and I literally cried with appreciation for what an amazing speech therapist she has been. She has been our daughter's biggest champion. The new families that she will work with this year are lucky to have her.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Alicia Perez-Katz ★★★★★ 4 years ago
    Sydney was great! Our son was sad to end his sessions with her, which says a lot. We appreciated her honest assessment of his skill level, and he now has materials to self monitor and practice. Thank you!
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Kristin Ames ★★★★★ 4 years ago
    Our experience with Theo was terrific. Theo was great with my son. He developed a positive relationship with him based on sincerity, respect, trust and a deep personal connection. In their lessons, Theo was encouraging, creative and kind. … More He helped our son understand how to differentiate the sounds he made when he spoke, and gave him great exercises to practice every week between lessons. Our son was sorry to have the lessons come to an end, but recognized that Theo had helped him as much as possible and it was time for him to stop. Theo explained to him (and us) how to keep working to get the last 5%, and encouraged him to keep working on the exercises on his own. I have recommended Theo to another parent who noticed my son's improvement and inquired for her own son.
    We are all grateful to have gotten to know Theo, and we greatly appreciate all the work he did to help our son.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Aisha Holder ★★★★★ 4 years ago
    "I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Michelle Macroy-Higgins. We are extremely pleased with her work with our daughter. I was so grateful for my daughter to have a speech therapist who is a researcher (specialty in late … More talkers), graduate professor and practitioner. Her expertise was clearly evident in our conversations and work with our daughter. She was very responsive to my questions and often sent articles and other materials about language development that I found helpful. Thankfully, my daughter's speech improved tremendously. Michelle developed such a warm relationship with my daughter. My daughter was always excited to see Michelle and would greet her at the door with a big hug. Lastly, I would add that Michelle always demonstrated empathy with me as a mother who was initially worried about her daughter's language development. I could go on and on about how pleased we were with Michelle's work."
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Andrea Peartree ★★★★★ 4 years ago
    Theo is a wonderful Clinton Hill speech therapist. We were really pleased with him. Our son showed drastic improvement, not only in his speech but in his confidence.
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters mario costa ★★★★★ 4 years ago
    Alexa has been an enthusiastic, reliable, well prepared and caring teacher for our 6 year old daughter. She has been able to improve and increase our daughter's confidence lesson by lesson with patience and competence; through varied … More and productive didactic practice. Alexa has engaged our daughter in several activities that always kept her motivated and eager to learn literacy. My wife and I, both of us are educators, feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to observe Alexa's pedagogical skills. Alexa has had a big impact on our daughter literacy growth. Thank you Brooklyn Letters!
  • Google review, Brooklyn Letters Lily Alt ★★★★★ 4 years ago
    We were absolutely DELIGHTED with Marsha's services. She was wonderful. We found her to be kind, fun, engaging, very knowledgeable. She provided us with clear instructions and additional written handouts each week. She engaged our … More son with different techniques and toys, and showed us how to use her techniques when we were interacting with him. I actually just texted her on Saturday - Our son finally said "more" - one of the target words we had been working on with her. It was a total joy to hear, and I had to share it with her - she wrote back immediately to congratulate us. I am so appreciative of her expertise, and wish we could have seen her for longer. I recommended her to another family in our neighborhood who is looking for a speech therapist.

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STATEN ISLAND SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR TEENS

SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR TEENS
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Our Speech Language Therapists For Teens Travel to Your Staten Island Home! | Top In-Person and Remote Speech Language Therapy for Teens in Staten Island | Free Consultation and Meet & Greets With Our Staff

Our Speech Language Therapists For Teens Travel to Your Staten Island Home! | Top In-Person and Remote Speech Language Therapy for Teens in Staten Island | Free Consultation and Meet & Greets With Our Staff
WE TRAVEL TO THE FOLLOWING STATEN ISLAND NEIGHBORHOODS:
Annadale Arden Heights Arlington Arrochar Bay Terrace Bloomfield Brighton Heights Bulls Head Castleton Corners Charleston Chelsea Clifton Concord Dongan Hills Egbertville Elm Park Eltingville Emerson Hill Fort Wadsworth Graniteville Grant City Grasmere Great Kills Greenridge Grymes Hill Hamilton Park Heartland Village Huguenot Lighthouse Hill Livingston Manor Heights Jefferson Mariners Harbor Meiers Corners Midland Beach New Brighton New Dorp New Springville Oakwood Old Place Old Town Pleasant Plains Port Ivory Port Richmond Prince's Bay Randall Manor Richmond Valley Richmondtown Rosebank Rossville Saint George Sandy Ground Shore Acres Silver Lake South Beach Stapleton Stapleton Heights Sunnyside Todt Hill Tompkinsville Tottenville Tottenville Beach Travis Ward Hill West New Brighton Westerleigh Willowbrook Woodrow
Our Speech-Language Pathologists and Therapists

We travel to you and we also offer remote services. Some of our speech-language pathologists are trained in the Orton Gillingham approach. Many of our speech-language pathologists 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:

Our Speech-Language Pathologists and Therapists

We travel to you and we also offer remote services. Some of our speech-language pathologists are trained in the Orton Gillingham approach. Many of our speech-language pathologists 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:

Training/Certifications
Training/Certifications
TESTIMONIALS

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.

Alina was WONDERFUL! Very grateful for her skills and warmth.

- Anna Solomon
Meet our CEO
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 disorder.  Indications that tweens and teens might struggle with their language can be apparent when they exhibit difficulties with their expressive, listening, reading, writing, vocabularygrammatical structures, and social use. Many middle and high schoolers also struggle with their executive function skills.

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.

SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR 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.

SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR TEENS

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 OUR STATEN ISLAND SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPISTS AND PATHOLOGISTS WHO TRAVEL TO YOUR HOME
SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR TEENS
Sarah
M.S., CCC-SLP, SPEECH LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST,  NEW YORK STATE LICENSED CLINICIAN
SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR TEENS
Amanda
M.S., CCC-SLP, TSSLD, SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST

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