"Our 6-year-old son has been a client of Lynn's Speech Center since July of 2008. He was born at only 23 weeks gestation and 1 pound, 4 oz. At 3 years old, when he first began speech therapy at Lynn's, he had significant feeding challenges and was non-verbal.

With the ultimate in patience and kindness, his therapist helped an overly defensive child become comfortable with oral motor stretching and strengthening exercises, which first resulted in less fatigue and gagging while eating. We then witnessed what felt like a miracle -- our son began to produce sounds and a few simple words! We had no idea he had such a sweet voice!

At one point in his special education preschool program, it was recommended by the child study team that our son begin using an assisted communication device. When we shared this with our therapist, she was very upset and insisted that we refuse. She was adamant that Brian simply needed more time to develop and that with continued oral motor work and speech therapy he would learn to express himself in words.

We are thrilled to report that our son's feeding challenges are now a thing of the past and he is talking in phrases! Our therapist at Lynn's Speech Center believed in our son when the school system didn't and perhaps thought it easier to provide him with another means of communication. Above all, she had the expertise to facilitate her belief and gave hope to confused and discouraged parents.

To this day, Lynn's Speech Center is one of our son's favorite places to go. He is always greeted with kind and smiling faces, and so much fun and playtime are incorporated into his sessions that it never really feels like work to him.

To any family considering speech therapy for their child, consider Lynn's Speech Center first. Lynn and her staff have given our precious son the incredible power of speech and us the most beautiful sound we have ever heard."

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"I first brought my son to Lynn's Speech Therapy Center when he was about 6 years old. At the time, he'd just been diagnosed with apraxia, and I found out through a doctor that the best therapist for that was Lynn O'Dell. I immediately liked her because, while everyone was telling me my son would never talk, she gave me hope.

Lucas is now 12 and talking. It may not be perfect speech (yet!), but certainly understandable enough for him to carry on a conversation, tell me about his day and even joke around! He's had some rough times over the years, but Lynn has always been supportive and understanding. In fact, so is everyone who works there, from therapists to administrative assistants. I don't even want to imagine what my son would be like today if we had never found Lynn. And I'm hopeful that with her care, he'll continue to improve daily."

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"We are very pleased with the progress that Gina has made with our son over the past year in dealing with his speech delay issues. When he started working with Gina, our son could only say a handful of words and would only speak when spoken too.

Now, his vocabulary has increased significantly and he is much more willing to express himself with words rather than grunts and gestures. Gina does a great job of keeping us informed on his progress during their sessions as well as suggesting exercises for us to do with our son at home. We are extremely happy with our decision to bring our son to Lynn’s Speech Therapy and look forward to continued success."

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"We brought our 27 month old son to see Lynn on the recommendation of Dr. Agin. We had been told the news that he was on the spectrum for Autism and that intensive therapy needed to be started. We lined up EIP services and ABA therapists. Everyone we saw was very professional but no one could give us true outcomes. That is until we sat for our evaluation with Lynn.

She was great with our son -and had him sitting on her lap and doing facial stretches right there in the evaluation. When she began to play with him and PROMPT him he actually said “bah” for ball and I started crying right there in the evaluation.

She clearly described what she saw and how she would go about helping our son. She then gave us time frames and expectations of progress; no promises, just basic here’s what we’re going to do and what she expected to see. 8 months later our son is talking in phrases and we do not even consider him on the spectrum anymore. Thank you, Lynn."

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"My fourth grader Abby had been in speech therapy since Kindergarten. The therapists did a good job fixing a lot of her sound errors. But the SH and R sound remained a problem and the school therapist we were working with wanted to stop services as they had done all they could do. Another mom recommended Lynn’s Speech Therapy Center. We went and saw Lynn who said she thought it would take 6-8 months to fix. She gave us exercises to do at home, and we didn’t even practice the sounds. We just did oral motor exercises. Toward the end we did a little work on each sound with dittos and we were finished at the 6 month mark. I couldn’t believe that after all these years someone finally knew what was needed."

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"If you live close to Lynn’s Speech Therapy Center you are so lucky. We could not find a therapist trained in the prompt technique or knowledgeable about oral motor therapy any where near us. We travel 75 minutes to get to Lynn’s and it is worth it. She actually asked us to bring a video camera to help train us in the techniques and make sure we did it correctly at home. What a great idea! I feel like have Lynn right there with me doing therapy.

My son, Ben, loves her and loves watching the video of himself while I do his exercises with him. We had been in EIP therapy for a year and half with very little progress. In 3 months at Lynn’s we have seen such gains that it feels like a miracle. Ben is playing with toys in varied ways, he is talking while he plays, he is asking me for things he wants and he is playing more with his brother and drinking from a straw. I would drive for 10 hours to get this therapy and this result!"

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"Lynn was contacted by my school distrct, which has 15 speech therapists, to present a hands-on workshop for Oral Motor Therapy. We were so impressed with the information, that we asked her to return two more times to answer questions we had and provide further information, techniques, and hands-on, supervised practice. She gave us an easy, comfortable way to begin integrating O.M. therapy into our sessions by introducing the Beckman Stretches and Releases, and a variety of O.M. exercises for the students to practice.

This has become the core of my articulation therapy, and I'm thrilled to report that it has made a noticeable difference with the majority of my articulation students, without even "practicing" their target sounds! She also provided crucial information regarding jaw stability using bite blocks, and introduced us to Straw Therapy, Horn Therapy, and Bubble Therapy, providing us with CDs that discuss and demonstrate these three O.M. therapies. I'm very excited about incorporating these into my sessions, as well!

Furthermore, we left the first session with a nearly two-inch thick booklet detailing everything she showed us, along with a "homework book", which made it easier for us to "jump right into" O.M. therapy.

Finally, she continues to be my sounding board! Any time I have a question or need clarification regarding Oral Motor Therapy, I can shoot her an e-mail and she responds within 24 hours! I finally feel like I have the tools and techniques that I can use to truly help my articulation caseload!

Thank you, Lynn!!"

Mary Ann LaRocca
Speech Therapist
Vineland Public School District

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