Logan & Sam – Pediatric Care

Thanks to speech therapy at Riverwood, Logan and Sam Hanson are on the road to better communication. Fluid build-up from chronic ear infections caused temporary hearing loss at a critical time when they were learning to talk.

“Logan had to have two sets of ear tubes,” explained his mother, Laurie Hanson. “We started speech therapy for him when he was 3 years old. The Riverwood Rehab staff was amazing. I had twin babies at the time and had to bring them with me to Logan’s therapy appointments. The Rehab receptionist, Angie Kuppich, was always willing to hold one kid when another was crying. Everyone was so friendly, supportive and accommodating.”

Laurie added: “When Logan started school, he continued to get speech therapy help at the school, but he was able to progress by leaps and bounds because of the care at Riverwood.”

Sam required ear tubes as well and was not hearing clearly as a toddler. At age 3, he began weekly speech therapy sessions in May 2018.

“Sam sees Amanda Rumpca for speech therapy and he loves coming to each appointment,” Laurie said. “She uses techniques that combine play with learning, such as speaking into a plastic tube so he can hear his voice.”

Amanda Rumpca, speech-language pathologist, commented: “Sam always comes ready and excited for speech therapy. We work hard on speech sounds during sessions but also have a lot of fun! His mother, Laurie, has been wonderful at following through with the home program and practicing sounds at home, which has contributed to the progress we’ve seen.”

Amanda enjoys working with pediatric patients to help them communicate more effectively.

She added: “Children with speech and language delays often become frustrated when they are unable to communicate. I enjoy collaborating with the families of my patients to identify goals and to create a unique treatment plan to help reach these goals. I try to make therapy fun by targeting goals in the context of play. I want my patients to enjoy coming to speech therapy and to leave feeling proud of the work they’ve done.”

 


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