If your child is falling behind other children when it comes to verbal skills at school or if someone at the school notices that your child is developing a bad habit when it comes to pronouncing certain sounds, a teacher or administrator may suggest sending your child to speech therapy. While a professional can help get your child back on track, you can help streamline this process by continuing to work with your child on their speech while at home. Here are some tips to keep in mind if you want your child to get back on the right path as fast as possible.
Be Clear With Your Own Words When You Speak to Your Child
Children often learn by hearing others speak. If you know your child is struggling, make it a point to talk to them more often and be clear to correctly pronounce every sound as you speak. If you notice your child speaking too fast or pronouncing a word wrong, you could try correcting them but don't be too forceful about it. Your child's speech pathology expert may have some additional tips for best practices.
Use Playtime to Work on Pronouncing Certain Sounds If Possible
If your child doesn't respond well to being criticized, try to work some additional therapy into playtime. Does your child have trouble pronouncing a certain syllable but they have a toy or a video game or something you could use that also includes that same sound? Talk about this thing with your child and pay attention to how they repeat the word back to you. Get your child to make this noise or sound more often during playtime and they might not even realize that they are learning because they are focusing on having fun.
Encourage Your Child and Remain Positive About Therapy As Needed
It can be upsetting at first for both the child and the parent to find out your child might need a little bit of extra help with development. But you will want to maintain a positive vibe with your child about the therapy. The point is not to criticize them about where they are right now but to ensure they will be able to have a full set of verbal skills once they grow older.
Speech therapy can take time to start creating progress, but you can speed things up by working to keep your child working on any issues while at home. Talk to a speech therapy expert from a place like Eastern Carolina Ear Nose & Throat-Head today to get started.
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