Practicing Speech Therapy at Home: Do You Need Something Special?
Parents play a very important role in their children’s progress when they attend speech therapy and in language development in general. Practicing speech therapy at home gives parents more opportunities to experience, connect, and communicate in relevant, everyday activities throughout the day.
The majority of learning occurs in these everyday experiences between parent and child. Speech language pathologists (SLPs) can assist parents in implementing speech therapy strategies throughout their child’s day for practicing speech therapy at home by giving suggestions and tactics. It is critical that therapy be extended after the therapy session into the child’s normal routines, such as bath time, snack time, and/or bedtime. This is because the skills children learn and integrate will grow simpler and more automatic as they practice during home routines.
Yet telling a child they need to do their “speech homework” will likely make your child groan. Between school, sports, clubs, and other extracurricular activities it may be challenging to add another thing to do. Yet, as mentioned, practicing speech therapy at home is important.
So it’s great for parents to know that they don’t always need to do something special to teach their child. Learning language happens in natural situations during play, chores and errands we run with our kids. Watch the video below. Jacie G., one of the expert speech therapists on children’s language disorders at Therapy Works Together reminds parents that they might already be practicing speech therapy at home without even knowing it.
RELATED: Parents can Improve a Child’s Language Skills at Home with These 5 Tips.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi, my name is Jacie and I’m a speech therapist. I’ve worked with families for over 12 years to help them meet their communication goals.
I want to share with you a tip that I love to share families especially during the busy season like the holidays coming up.
We don’t have time to sit down and do those other good activities like the paper pencil activities or the computer activities that you might like to do that where they drill or answer questions over and over.
It also just adds some fun to things.
So a tip I love to share with families is to use the way children learn to actually to help develop their skills and their communication skills.
What I mean by this is that take what they do naturally; Do they like to play? Younger children like to play; they like you to tickle them and grab their arms and legs and wiggle around and things like that.
Our children they like to do things like basketball or go to shopping get their nails done, watch YouTube. So do all that with them and encourage them to do those things because all of that really helps their learning.
For example, with babies when you sing to them when you smile at them when they smile back. You’re laying foundation for communication later in life the turn taking skills do you need for having a conversation and all the language that you talk to them with, and the songs that you sing, and the books that you read even though they don’t look like they’re listening it’s all going in. So do those things have fun with it.
In younger children that play with toys you can comment say “oh look at the car it’s going fast…oh it’s going slow!”
Make it silly: “oh it’s under the cup! why is it under the cup?” All those things that you’re doing and playing with them encourage. That play it’s developing really great like language, and they might not seem list like, they’re might not even know how to play with the car, but you are showing them how to do it, it’s going in and it’s really good for them and the older children.
Or the teenagers that don’t usually play toys join in their basketball game. Like I mentioned before, take them shopping. You’re teaching them how to talk with others, how to talk with older people, and people their own age and younger people.
All those things are very important and just as important part of communication skills being developed or being modeled. And they don’t always like to talk back and that’s OK. It’s still going in, they’re watching they’re listening and it’s wonderful to model those good skills for them.
I hope you use these ideas for your family. I’d love to hear about your ideas. They might help other families; and your questions I’d love to hear those too.
Therapy Works Together – Online Speech Therapy for Children and Adults
We care about every child and adult achieving their speech, language and communication goals. You can start speech therapy online now with a certified speech language therapist. We’ll discuss your personal needs, develop an individualized treatment plan, and schedule affordable online therapy sessions online at your convenience.
