My 7-year-old son has been seeing Melissa Greenblatt at Suburban Speech Center for close to 3 years. Starting around the age of 2.5, he began stuttering, and it reached a point where he was experiencing physical tension and struggles. While stuttering can be part of normal development, he was growing frustrated and would avoid speaking at times. In addition to disfluency, he had speech articulation issues and trouble forming sounds such as s, r, and l. A speech-language pathologist at his preschool referred us to Melissa to better understand the disfluency and whether intervention was necessary. Melissa conducted a thorough speech-language assessment. While many children can and do "outgrow" stuttering, our child was showing some troubling signs--frequency, severity, and types of disfluency--that suggested it could become chronic. We also noticed that he was starting to experience discomfort when speaking with other adults and children. Melissa recommended that we start therapy, and we are incredibly glad that we did. Our child is now a first grader, and he has shown tremendous progress. In fact, his teacher did not pick up on any disfluency. While he occasionally gets hung up on a word, he speaks normally and engages in social situations. We also can tell that he uses strategies to help smooth his speech and avoid stuttering. For example, he will take a brief pause in a sentence when he senses "bumpy talk" is about to happen, or he will say, "Let me stop and think about this." Melissa continues to work 1:1 with him during weekly sessions and has developed a caring, warm relationship with our child. (NOTE: Because there is no "academic impact" from the disfluency, our child does not qualify for in-school speech therapy.) She also works together with our family to incorporate exercises and strategies (turtle talk, taking turns talking, reducing time pressure, etc.) to improve the fluency of his speech, as well as speech articulation. Melissa continues to monitor his development in all speech-language areas, which has been incredibly helpful in identifying any challenges or hurdles as our child learns to read and write. Melissa has been a wonderful partner in helping our child and our family. read more

We have had the pleasure of working with the Suburban Speech Center and Nancy for three years now. First it was just our daughter and now my younger son is working there as well, and since day one it has been nothing but a positive experience. Nancy and her staff are 100% dedicated to their clients and their profession. Not only have they helped both my daughter and son make giant strides in the their communication skills but they have taken to the time to get to know my children and treat them as part of the family. Suburban has always kept us in the loop with a clear and comprehensive plan for therapy. They have the experience and knowledge to work across a broad range of different disabilities which has been a great resource for my daughter who has multiple struggles. We are certain that Suburban has laid the groundwork that has helped our daughter finally make the advances in school that we have been waiting for. Nancy and her staff not only provide top notch therapy but they are all kind, patient, honest and completely devoted to my children. Suburban Speech Center was recommended to us by a top developmental pediatrician in New York City and we would recommend as well. read more

I found Suburban Speech literally by cold calling random places when we moved to NJ and consider myself so lucky to have landed where I did. My daughter, who has a genetic syndrome had speech delays and saw Kim for about 2 years from age 1 to 3. She went from being behind to being ahead for her age! We stopped going but returned at age 4 1/2 to see Jane for articulation. Within months her articulation was way better and within a year she will be graduating completely. The people who work at Suburban are truly talented and really care about the kids and parents. They are always professional, kind, sensitive and honest. In addition they work closely with other therapists (occupational therapy, behavior, learning) in the building which helped us find other great resources and ensured that our scheduling and goals were all coordinated. I can't say enough about Nancy and her team. I wouldn't have made it through these early years without them, and my daughter would not be the success she is today without their help. read more

I had the great pleasure of working with Melissa at Suburban Speech Center for my daughter, Alexis', stuttering. The whole staff is very professional, timely, and efficient with everything they do. Melissa was so sweet with Lexi. She made her and my son, who tagged along, always feel welcome. She gave them toys and occupied both kids while I learned the techniques on how to correct the issue at home. Lexi and Jaxson always enjoyed going every week, and never complained. I have learned so much on how to help Lexi not stutter at home, that within 1 session, I started seeing an improvement. The only disfluencies I hear now are totally age-appropriate, but its good to still have the "tools" available to correct the "bumpy" talk when I hear it. I loved my experience at Suburban Speech Center, and I highly recommend the practice for any of your child's special speech needs. read more

Allison and the team at Suburban Speech have helped my son grow leaps and bounds. Dr. Polow has not only personally called to make sure my son was getting everything he needs, but has offered support to me as a parent with a child with a speech delay. Allison is not only a very talented speech therapist, but she is genuinely cares about my son in a way that goes way beyond her job description. My son also LOVES the speech "homework" Allison gives each week to help him grow. I highly, highly recommend Suburban Speech! read more

We couldn't be more pleased with the quality of treatment from Suburban Speech, headed by Nancy. My 2 1/2 yr old son worked directly with Kim and started out almost non verbal, but very quickly responded to her cues. The improvement of his speech made a world of difference with his communication and temperament. Her ability to make each session enjoyable helped engage him in the lessons and carry over at home and socially. A year later he is right on target and a very happy little boy! read more