Effective Speech Therapy

Chavonne Sladek _{on Google}

Aug 10th, 2019

Sheryl Heidt is the best speech pathologist I have had worked with. She does an amazing job with children and adults.
I worked in the public school system for 23 years and observed numerous speech pathologists in a school setting.  Often times, students were put in small groups with an aide to do the therapy.  At Effective Speech Therapy, Sheryl works one on one with her client.
Our granddaughter had severe apraxia of speech which is a motor planning deficit.  She was 85% unintelligible throughout kindergarten.  She desperately wanted to play with other children, but was unable to even speak her name and had to have it written on a paper to introduce herself.  Sheryl worked tirelessly with our granddaughter.  We had scheduled appointments and she notified us immediately if there was a cancellation so that we could get additional treatments.  Therapy started and finished on time; no time was wasted in a waiting room.
Sheryl is a phenomenal diagnostician and treatment was adjusted throughout our granddaughter's therapy sessions to help her meet her full potential. Sheryl worked on motor skills with her regarding mouth and tongue formation, air movement in the mouth and nose, and the pitch and volume she used when speaking.  Sheryl also worked on social cues and the ability to read body language and interact with other children and adults.
Sheryl has a wealth of knowledge and a variety of interventions to use.  I was able to talk with her about the previous week's challenges and she was able to weave that information into the therapy session.  As a result, our granddaughter has finished fourth grade and is one of the top readers in her class.  She had read the series of books titled "A Series of Unfortunate Events;" books rich in vocabulary.  She even earned the first place reading ribbon in her class.  Our granddaughter is social and loves to talk and interact with other children.  Without Sheryl's intervention our granddaughter would have been lost in a public school setting.
Sheryl has also worked with my husband who has an atypical parkinsonism; a diagnosis that leads to speech, language, and cognitive difficulties.  My husband's physician at UCLA has been extremely pleased with the progress he has made with Sheryl.  She has helped him to be able to access his prior language skills using theories of neuroplasticity and the creation of new neural pathways.  She has helped us, as a family, to find ways to communicate with my husband to reduce the stress on him.  She has given him tools to help deal with public situations. Sheryl is not the type of speech pathologist who will open a book to page 33 and next week, you will go to page 34.  She is constantly listening and interacting with you, reassessing and encouraging you.  With her help, my husband's quality of life has been greatly improved.
There are not enough words to describe what a phenomenal speech pathologist Sheryl Heidt is and the lasting impact she has had on our family.  We would highly recommend her for all your speech and language problems.