Speech Pathology at Home
Progressing in your Speech Pathology goals requires constant practice, repetition, and patience. Following your child’s speech therapy sessions, there is a good chance that the clinician has assigned and provided homework to complete between the therapy sessions.
If your child is attending therapy sessions and is developing with their treatment, it is critical to build on this success and practice at home with them. Progress in Speech therapy can take time, as it is not an overnight process. Your child is learning a new concept or skill. The more your child practices that particular concept or skill, the better they will become at it.
You might be thinking, why would I complete some activities with my child when they already see a range of clinicians? Your child might have sessions once a week with a speech pathologist or they might have sessions once a month. Regardless, practicing and reinforcing the concepts learnt with the speech pathologist will aid them to achieve their goals and ultimately progress their development in therapy at a much faster pace. If there is a week or any long period of time between sessions with your clinician with no practice undertaken, there's a likelihood that any development your child has achieved may regress. This could result in your child losing a previously learned speech or language skill. Frequent practice at home helps to avoid this from happening and guarantees that you and your child stay engaged and motivated by all your hard work and development!
We understand that everyone has different schedules and busy lives. However, speech pathology homework and practice does not need to be a burden and take up a huge chunk of your day. It does not require a substantial time commitment or any fancy techniques. You don’t have to have any qualifications to help your child practice at home. It can simply just mean you might need to make small changes in your everyday routine, such as setting aside about 10 minutes for practice.
Some tips for practicing:
- You can provide motivators such as lollies or toys during practice to help engage the child.
- Break up the task into 10-15 mins segments.
- Plan with days/times you want to practice and stick to that routine.
- Practice at a suitable time in a quiet location so they can focus easily.
