Meet Bella: Patient Success Story

Bella is a creative and enthusiastic, almost ten year old young lady who graduated from speech therapy services in February 2023. She was referred because she struggled with pronouncing advanced speech sounds, specifically words that included a ‘r’, making it difficult for her to be understood when having conversations with people who were unfamiliar with the way she spoke.

Bella’s speech therapist was able to make intervention strategies fun and motivating by using games, such as ‘Spot It,’ to target speech sounds and achieve a high number of practice trials during sessions. As Bella’s confidence grew, she used her many talents to become an author and illustrator of her very own comic book where she rose to the challenge of including extra tricky words for her, such as ‘purple’ and ‘squirrel.’ Bella’s supportive family was also part of her success by incorporating therapy strategies into their daily routines with the guidance of her speech therapist. Her speech therapist provided age-appropriate books that included target sounds for Bella to practice while reading aloud to her family, and they would let her know if they heard her ‘new way’ or ‘old way’ sounds while reading and in conversations.

With all of her hard work, Bella crushed all of her goals and is now able to say the ‘r’ sound during conversation with accuracy and independence! She recently started playing the recorder in her school’s music class and is excited to explore her musical talents as well as her ability to say the word ‘recorder’! Her family is proud of her speech improvements and grateful they were able to be involved in Bella’s therapy with services being provided in the home.