Comprehensive Speech / Language Therapy
The objective of the treatment of cognitive – communication disorders are to:
1. Enhance the patient’s ability to focus, shift and maintain attention.
2. Enhance orientation of self.
3. Facilitate judgment and problem - solving skills.
4. Aid the patient in organizing and synthesizing spontaneous speech as well as conveyed information.
5. Enhance pragmatic skills.
6. Enhance speech skills especially speech prosody often associated with right-cerebral and hemisphere damage.
7. Enhance comprehension of narratives and conversation.
Treatment of cognitive – communication disorders focuses on:
1. Impairments in focusing, shifting and maintaining attention.
2. Impaired orientation to place, time and situation.
3. Impaired judgment and problem–solving.
4. Difficulty organizing and synthesizing information.
5. Impulsivity, tangentiality, and excessive detail in speech.
6. Difficulty separating what is important from what is not.
7. Inability to use contextual cues to ascertain meanings.
8. A tendency to interpret figurative language literally.
9. Over personalization.
10. Reduced sensitivity to pragmatic or extra linguistic aspect of communication.
Didactic approaches are often used during speech-language therapy, where the clinician asks questions and provides the patient with activities. Often the patient is provided with worksheets, take-home activities and instructions. It is imperative that follow-up activities and instructions at home are done.
Depending on the patient’s performance, present skills, and therapy goals, the activities done during therapy must consist of:
- drills and exercises to increase sustained attention and resistance to distraction;
- pencil and paper tasks calling for diligence and sustained attention;
- activities requiring monitoring of visual cues, making responses when cue changes;
- gradual introduction of distracting or competing stimuli during treatment activities;
- gentle confrontation when patient denies errors;
- teaching self-monitoring skills during structured and unstructured activities;
- behavior modification techniques:
- using various visual or auditory stimuli to control patient’s impulsive behavior; and
- increasing eye contact, facilitate conversational turn–taking skills, facilitate topic maintenance.
- immersion in activities requiring reasoning, foresight problem-solving; and
- target inference failure by using activities that focus on:
- appreciation of humor;
- appreciation of implied meanings of metaphors and idioms;
- identification of verbal and pictorial absurdities;
- comprehension of indirectly stated information in stories and narratives;
- retelling stories; and
- perceiving relationships by categorizing items according to class membership
Consultant Staff:
Ma. Socorro C. Martinez, MD, FPNA
CDR- Certified Neurologist, Head of the Center
Jacquiline C. Dominguez, MD, FPNA
CDR-Certified Neurologist, Assistant Head of the Center
Miguel A. Ramos, MD, FPSGM
Geriatrician
Joel G. Eleazar, MD, FPSGM
Geriatric Psychiatrist
Psychology Staff:
Primitivo B. Mactal, Jr., PhD in Psychology
Jhoanna Marie A. Cheng, MA in Psychology
Nursing Staff:
Precy S. Cruz, RN - Center Manager
Maria Leni L. Lorca, RN – Nurse Clinician
Occupational Therapist:
John L. Liu, OTRP
Maria Riza D. Villaruz, OTRP
Speech Therapist:
Sheryl A. Sibug, SP
Sandy M. Ladignon, SP
Carla A. Cuadro, SP
Maria Teddie Rose D. Mateo, SP
Data Encoder and Administrative Assistant:
