I am a registered Speech Language Pathologist with over 26 years of experience working with many different children and their families in many different settings. I want to help you help your child to have the best speech and language skills possible.
Better Speech, Language and Social Communication are truly the best gifts any parent can give their child.
Why work on speech sounds?
- It makes your child easier to understand
- Frustration is reduced for everyone
- Your child becomes a confident effective communicator
- Speech sound errors place children at risk for difficulty with early reading and spelling
- Speech errors that go uncorrected can last a lifetime
- Helping your child to develop clear speech can be the most rewarding and valuable time you spend with your child
Working on speech sounds, even individual sounds can have a big impact on a child’s ability to communicate. The ability to communicate clearly sets children up for success early on and for the rest of their lives.
Why parents should work on speech sounds at home?
- Parents are the ones that spend the most time with their children and have multiple opportunities each day to interact in a meaningful way
- Frequent and consistent practice results in the best possible progress
- It is most often easy and straightforward if the right steps are followed
- Working on speech sounds at home cost effective
- Parents know their children best – you are your child’s first and best teacher
More and more I find that the best use of my time is to help parents help their children. Daily interaction and stimulation helps speech and language skills develop and for progress to soar. While there can be reasons why some parents are not able to work directly on speech sounds at home, parents should always be enabled to support speech and language development at home as much as possible. Supporting parents is powerful, effective and is by far the best possible practice. Research clearly supports parents as “Speech Therapists“.
Besides just learning how to say sounds properly there is a strong connection between good speech and early reading and writing skills – phonological awareness. Sound awareness plays a vital role in the early years and is a reliable predictor of literacy development. Children with good phonological skills have a huge advantage when learning to read. If children go for too long saying sounds incorrectly it affects their ability to listen and to tell the difference between sounds. Good speech means a better start for reading and writing skills.
This site provides parents with ideas and materials to work on speech sounds at home. Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope the ideas and materials help.
While all of the ideas and materials are based on my experience as a Speech Language Pathologist, they are just a guide. They cannot replace therapy with or an assessment by a Speech-Language Pathologist or any other professional.
Contact me at AskSpeechTherapyAtHome@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments. I would love to hear from you.
SLPatHome.