Audiology Services at Children's Hospital Colorado

We provide children, their families and referring providers access to the most current knowledge and advancements in the fields of audiology (hearing), speech, language, feeding, swallowing, communication and learning. Our team of specialists works closely with patients and other healthcare professionals to ensure that each child’s communication, development and learning needs are fully evaluated and adequately addressed. Together, we provide support and a circle of family-centered care unmatched in the Rocky Mountain-Great Plains region.

Why choose Children's Hospital Colorado for audiology, speech and learning conditions

Children's Colorado has provided clinical hearing, speech, language and learning services to children and their families for more than 50 years. All clinical staff are specialty trained in pediatrics and are certified by national professional organizations and/or state certification bodies.

We focus on providing comprehensive family-centered care to infants, toddlers, children and adolescents in Colorado and the surrounding area. Whether it is a recent diagnosis, ongoing evaluations or the latest treatment, Children's Colorado provides the region's most comprehensive continuum of care. Picture smart and driven clinicians, the most dedicated and caring staff and state-of-the-art equipment and you'll start to get an idea of what you'll find at Children's Colorado.

• We are steadfast in our devotion to children and to helping them lead happy and fulfilling lives.
• We have more than 50 years of experience providing specialty services.
• Our pediatric experts exclusively treat kids.
• Our services are delivered at various locations throughout the Denver metropolitan area, as well as at the hospital's Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado.

Conditions we treat

Within our multidisciplinary program, we diagnose and treat children with a variety of conditions.

• Audiology conditions include hearing sensitivity, loss or impairment and deaf or hard of hearing infants and children.
• Speech conditions include feeding and swallowing disorders (dysphagia), language and speech delay disorders, stuttering and cleft lip and palate conditions.
• Learning conditions include dyslexia, literacy delays and learning disabilities.

See a complete list of the audiology, speech and learning conditions we treat.

Audiology services

Audiology services at Children's Colorado include hearing evaluations (hearing tests); hearing aid consultations, fittings and management; bone conduction anchored fitting and management; cochlear implant services and management; and deaf and/or hard of hearing intervention. In addition to these services, we also offer the following specialized clinics and programs:

Bill Daniels Center for Children's Hearing
The Bill Daniels Center provides comprehensive family-centered care to infants, toddlers, children and adolescents in Colorado and the surrounding area, who are deaf and/or hard of hearing. Through the generous support of the Daniels Fund, Children's Colorado provides the region's most comprehensive continuum of care from pediatric experts in audiology, speech-language pathology and otolaryngology, as well as deaf education, clinical genetics and clinical social work. For more information, call 720-777-6531 or email BillDanielsCenter@childrenscolorado.org.

Microtia Multidisciplinary Clinic
The Microtia Multidisciplinary Clinic is applicable for children, from birth to age 21. We encourage families to come to the clinic to obtain information and ideas, meet with other children and their families during their consultation, and learn about ear and hearing options.

Speech services

In addition to augmentative communication services, individual/dual/group speech-language therapy and individual/dual/group feeding therapy, we also offer the following speech specialty clinics and programs:

Aerodigestive Program
The Aerodigestive Program at Children's Colorado is a special service for children and families managing complex airway, respiratory and gastrointestinal track disorders.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication Team (AAC)
The AAC program provides evaluation and treatment for children in need of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies. AAC strategies are for anyone with unmet communication needs. This can include children who are verbal, minimally verbal or non-verbal with a variety of diagnoses (including cerebral palsy, autism, Down syndrome and apraxia, among others). For more information, call 720-777-6250.

Cleft Lip and Palate Clinic
The experts at Children's Colorado's Cleft Lip and Palate Clinic treat a wide range of diagnoses, including cleft lip and/or palate, submucous cleft palate, velopharyngeal incompetence, paralysis of the palate and oral-motor coordination problems. Our multidisciplinary team includes plastic surgeons, pediatric otolaryngologists, pediatric dentists, speech-language pathologists, audiologists, pediatricians, physical therapists and social workers.

Feeding and Swallowing Program
The Feeding and Swallowing Program at Children's Colorado provides a comprehensive, family-centered approach to assessment and treatment of children with feeding and/or swallowing difficulties. Evaluations are available through The Swallowing Disorders Clinic, Pediatric Oral Feeding Clinic, Aerodigestive Program, or individual feeding assessments. Individual, intensive and group feeding treatments are available. For more information, call 720-777-6168.

Hanen Parent Education Program
The Hanen programs provide early language intervention for children through specific parent training. Hanen It Takes Two to Talk^® focuses on early language intervention for young children with expressive and/or receptive language delays, enabling the parent to be the child's primary language facilitator. Hanen More Than Words^® is a family-focused program that gives parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and related social communication difficulties, practical tools to help their children communicate. For more information, call 720-777-6800.

Pediatric Oral Feeding Clinic (POFC)
The Pediatric Oral Feeding Clinic provides a medical, nutritional, oral motor/oral sensory and developmental assessment when there is a concern regarding limited oral intake, food refusal, picky eating, poor weight gain or difficulty transitioning off of tube or supplemental feedings. For more information, call 720-777-6168.

Swallowing Disorders Clinic
The Swallowing Disorders Clinic provides a nutritional, oral motor/oral sensory and radiographic assessment when there is a concern regarding swallowing dysfunction and aspiration. For more information, call 720-777-6168.

Voice Clinic
The Voice Clinic offers both medical and therapeutic treatments for a wide variety of voice disorders, resulting from congenital causes, infectious disease, inflammatory conditions, benign and malignant vocal cord growths, neuromuscular disorders and trauma.

Learning services

Our learning services include educational consultation and planning, small group programs for students with reading disorders and individualized learning therapies designed to address each child’s specific development needs in reading, written language or mathematics. We also provide resources to expand the knowledge of professionals who work with children with language-based learning disabilities, such as dyslexia.

We offer the following learning clinics and programs:

Anna and John J. Sie Center for Down Syndrome
The multidisciplinary Sie Center provides comprehensive family-centered care to infants, toddlers, children and adolescents with Down syndrome. The Sie Center is a cooperative effort of Children's Colorado and the University of Colorado-Anschutz to offer a continuum of care from pediatric experts in developmental pediatrics, physical therapy, speech-language pathology and social work.

Developmental Pediatrics
Developmental Pediatrics evaluates children with a variety of developmental and neurobehavioral differences, providing single-specialty evaluations as well as an interdisciplinary team approach, where multiple specialties see a child during a single appointment. Specially trained clinicians provide patients and families with the resources necessary to understand a diagnosis, cope with the challenges they might face and find appropriate therapies or interventions. For more information, call 720-777-6630.

Multidisciplinary Outpatient Rehabilitation Evaluation (MORE)
MORE provides an extensive cognitive and physical evaluation for children with complex learning, psychosocial, feeding, mobility or daily living problems. Although many of our children have had a traumatic brain injury or have unusual neurological syndromes, many others are undiagnosed children with complex learning problems. This clinic is staffed according to the specific needs of the individual, but it typically includes psychologist, social worker, speech language pathologist, learning specialist, occupational therapist and physical therapist. For more information, call 720-777-5470.

Social Skills Groups and Social Thinking Groups
Children's Colorado offers social skills group intervention to focus on social decision-making and social problem-solving. A variety of groups are held at various locations around the Denver metro area in winter/spring, summer and fall sessions. Groups are available for children ages 4 to 18; children ages 4 to 10 participate in "social skills group" co-led by both an occupational therapist and a speech language pathologist. Older children, ages 10-18, participate in a "social thinking group." Interested families should contact the intake coordinator discuss issues scheduling and insurance procedures. A downloadable Social Skills group form is available for parents (en Espanol) and referring therapists. A program flyer (.pdf) is also available for interested families. For more information about the groups, call 720-777-0042.

Additional resources

Children's Family Health Library
The Anschutz Medical Campus location offers a Family Health Library to provide information in broad areas such as parenting, child development, and medical diagnosis in children. Please feel free to stop by and use this great resource.

Websites

• Audiology.org
  Provided by the American Academy of Audiology, this site offers information about hearing loss and the profession of audiology.

• Schwab Learning
  A parent's guide to helping kids with learning difficulties.

• The Wrightslaw: Special Education Law
  Advice and resources on how to advocate for your child in the public school system.

• Stuttering Help
  The Stuttering Foundation of America website offers printable brochures, speech-language pathologist referral lists, and order information for brochures, books and videos.

• Apraxia Kids
  Source for reliable and comprehensive information about childhood apraxia of speech for families, professionals and all those who care about a child with apraxia.

• The American Speech, Language and Hearing Association
  Provides information on speech and language development and a wide variety of speech and language disorders.