Our Hearing and Speech providers are experienced in helping children find solutions to their auditory and language issues.
At Children’s National Hospital, our pediatric hearing and speech specialists diagnose, treat and care for children with hearing, speech, language and feeding disorders. We understand the impact that these conditions have on a child’s day-to-day life.
Difficulties with communication can occur when simple things such as hearing the speech of others, understanding the teacher or asking for help can become a source of frustration. Our aim is to provide support and resources to assist with the social, educational and emotional challenges that can accompany these types of disorders.
Our team offers comprehensive hearing, speech, language and feeding care – from screening infants’ hearing to evaluating a child’s voice quality to developing customized treatment, management and parent or caregiver training. Our specialists are researchers, teachers and leaders in hearing, speech, language and feeding specialties. We offer complete care, from early screenings and intervention to sophisticated solutions to complex problems.
We pay close attention to the emotional frustrations of children struggling with lost or diminished abilities. We will help your child learn, heal and grow while adjusting to new ways of communicating with treatments or assistive devices.
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:
At Children’s National, our audiologists and speech-language pathologists work on a variety of specialty clinics. Some of our clinics include:
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.
Tommie Robinson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, the division chief of the Division of Hearing and Speech, answers questions about common hearing and speech disorders in children.
For more information or to schedule an appointment, call us at 202-476-5600.
3-year-old Molly is obsessed with the movie “Frozen.” And like the fearless princess in Disney’s icy animated epic, there’s something very special about Molly. She was born deaf.
Tommie L. Robinson JR Division Chief, Hearing and Speech
Tracey Ambrose Lead Audiologist
Jessica Bulley Audiologist
Claire Buxton Audiologist
Patricia Craun Audiologist
Aubrey Ellis Audiologist
Emily Fustos Audiologist
Manju Kaku Audiologist
Eve Kronzek Audiologist
Gemma Messina Audiologist
Irene Sideris Audiologist
Karen Woolman Audiologist
Abigail Brandt Speech-Language Pathologist
Tiara Booth Speech-Language Pathologist
Maura Collins Speech-Language Pathologist
Madison Gogol Speech-Language Pathologist
Courtney Long Speech-Language Pathologist
Meagan Ledder Speech-Language Pathologist
Colleen Morgan Speech-Language Pathologist
Stephanie Nixon Speech-Language Pathologist
Jill Wiscount Speech-Language Pathologist
Kimberly Wood Speech-Language Pathologist
Margarita Bautista Vigas Speech-Language Pathologist
Barbara Bustamante Speech-Language Pathologist
LaShundra Collins Young Speech-Language Pathologist
Sharon Curcio Speech-Language Pathologist
Lawrence House Speech-Language Pathologist
Daniela Misri Speech-Language Pathologist