Hearing and Speech Center

We treat a full range of hearing, speech, language and feeding conditions. Our specialists also support and collaborate with other Children’s National pediatric teams who treat diverse conditions – such as infectious disease, cancer, autism, epilepsy, cranio-facial anomalies and neurofibromatosis – that can affect hearing and speech. We also use electroneurodiagnostic testing to evaluate a child's condition.

Some of the most common conditions we evaluate and treat include:

• Articulation/phonological delay/disorders
• Auditory processing
• Conductive hearing loss
• Language delay/disorders
• Motor speech disorders
• One-way speaking valves for tracheostomy patients
• Paradoxical vocal cord movement disorder
• Pediatric feeding disorders
• Resonance disorders
• Sensorineural hearing loss
• Single-sided deafness
• Social communication disorders
• Stuttering
• Vestibular and balance
• Voice disorders

At Children’s National, our audiologists and speech-language pathologists work on a variety of specialty clinics. Some of our clinics include:

• Aerodigestive
• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Balance and Vestibular
• Cardiac and Neurodevelopmental Outcome Program (CANDO)
• Cleft and Craniofacial
• Cochlear Implant
• Mitochondrial
• Paradoxical Vocal Fold Movement Disorder (PVFM)
• Turner Syndrome
• Velo-Pharyngeal Incompetence
• Voice

A one-way valve allows an infant or child to speak with a tracheostomy tube in place promoting normal language development. Some other benefits of the one-way valve include improved secretion management, improved swallow function and increased sense of taste and smell. Your child's ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist or pulmonologist will let you know if your child is appropriate to trial the one-way valve.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) provides alternative ways of communicating for children who have difficulty speaking naturally. AAC can involve one or more methods of communicating, including different levels of technology. These include gestures, sign language, picture symbols and computers with synthetic speech and/or digitized speech. AAC offers a mode to communicate that reduces the anticipation in interpreting the child’s message; however, AAC users are not encouraged to stop using speech if they are able to do so.

We conduct a pre-interview when the appointment is made to better prepare for your child’s success during the evaluation. The evaluation entails trialing speech-generating devices along with picture cards or other printed communication boards to determine the best system for your child.