Speech Therapy Ideas for Parents

Parents are more than capable of helping their child’s speech and language to develop at home.  Below are some basic ideas that I hope will help.  Let me know if you have any questions. You can reach through my Contact Page or email me at SLP@Speech-Therapyathome.com.

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Basic Speech Development Ideas

Your child learns to say sounds and speak clearly by listening to you.   Model good speech.  Say words slowly and clearly making sure you say each sound in every word.  Don’t use baby talk.  Read More.

Speech Sound Development – When to be Concerned

The following is a guide as to when it may be good to work on different speech sounds.  Remember that all children develop differently.  There are no hard and fast “rules” for when specific sounds should be worked on.  The biggest thing to watch with young children is how well they are understood by strangers.  Read More.

Games to Play When Practicing Sounds

Playing simple games makes it motivating for your child to practice sounds. It doesn’t matter what you play as long as you both are having fun.  Here are game suggestions for both younger and older children and ideas on how to make the practice more challenging.    Read More.

Core Words Approach

The Core Words approach is the most powerful way I have found for parents to work on speech sounds at home. Practice becomes meaningful and change starts to happen. Because you are working on carryover from the very start your child learns how to make the sounds correctly in their everyday speech.  Read More.

Hand Gestures for Sounds

Pairing a physical action with a sound makes it easier to say the sound.   Having your child practice doing the action each time you say the sound, will make it easier for him to say the sound correctly in harder words.  For some children the very action of doing something physical when trying to say the sound makes it easier.  Read More.

Motivation

Practicing, even just a little bit each day, is necessary for your child to make good progress.  However motivating your child and sometimes even yourself to do this isn’t always easy.  Here are some ideas to help:  Read More.

Modelling Back Good Speech

Modeling is a powerful way to help children become more aware of and learn how to say speech sounds.  Some parents are afraid to “correct” their child’s speech.  Modeling isn’t simply correction.  Modeling provides children with the information that they need.  Read More.

Early Ideas for Last Sounds

Children sometimes leave the endings off of words. When this happens words often become hard to understand.  These are some ideas to help younger children put the last sounds onto words. Activities for children under 3 focus on having the child become more aware of sounds.  Read More.

Minimal Pairs – What are they and how to use them

Minimal pairs are a teriffic  way to teach children awareness of sounds and helps them to see that changing one sound in a word can completely change what they are saying.  Minimal pairs are words that differ by only one sound such as “Wing”/”Swing”, “Rake”/”Wake” and “Can”/”Tan”.   I often encourage parents to use them when practicing with their children.  Read More.

Slowing Down Speech

Children sometimes need to learn to slow down their speech to make it easier to understand.  When children talk too quickly their words can get pushed together or they don’t give themselves time to say the sounds properly.  Here are some ideas to help practice slowing down.   Read More