Understanding phonological processes in 3–7-year-olds: What’s typical and when to seek help

ByLondon Speech and Feeding February 18, 2026February 13, 2026

As a speech and language therapist, one of the most common questions I hear from parents is:

‘They can talk, but their speech still sounds immature. Is this normal?’

Many children between the ages of three and seven use speech patterns that make their words sound different from adult speech. These patterns are known as phonological processes, and for younger children, they are a normal part of speech development.

However, when these processes persist beyond the expected age, they can start to affect clarity, confidence and learning, especially once children enter school.

This blog will help you understand:

what phonological processes are
which patterns are typical at different ages
and when it might be time to seek speech therapy support

What are phonological processes?

Phonological processes are patterns of sound simplification that children use while their speech system is developing.

Instead of learning each sound one by one, children initially organise sounds into patterns that make speech easier to produce. This is a normal and efficient strategy for a developing brain.

For example:

saying ‘tar’ instead of ‘car’
saying ‘poon’ instead of ‘spoon’
saying ‘bud’ instead of ‘bus’

These are not ‘bad habits’. They are part of how speech develops.

The key question is how long these patterns last.

Common phonological processes (and when they usually disappear)

Below are some of the most common processes parents notice in 3–7-year-olds.

1. Final consonant deletion

Leaving off the last sound in a word

‘ca’ for cat, ‘da’ for dog
Typically resolved by 3–3½ years

2. Fronting

Replacing back sounds (k, g) with front sounds (t, d)

‘tar’ for car, ‘do’ for go
Typically resolved by 3½–4 years

3. Cluster reduction

Omitting one sound in a consonant cluster

‘poon’ for spoon, ‘top’ for stop
Typically resolves by 4–5 years (some clusters slightly later)

4. Gliding

Replacing /R/ or /L/ with /W/ or /Y/

‘wabbit’ for rabbit, ‘yion’ for lion
Can be typical up to 5–6 years

5. Weak syllable deletion

Leaving out unstressed syllables

‘nana’ for banana
Usually resolved by 4 years

If these patterns continue past the expected age, speech can remain difficult to understand particularly for unfamiliar listeners such as teachers, peers, and also Auntie Karen or grandparents who visit once in a while.

Why phonological processes matter in school-age children

By the time children reach reception and Year 1, speech clarity becomes increasingly important.

Persistent phonological difficulties can affect:

being understood by teachers and peers
phonics and early reading
spelling
confidence in speaking
willingness to participate in class

Some children become aware that they ‘sound different’ and may speak less, avoid longer words, or become frustrated when misunderstood.

What’s the difference between a delay and a disorder?

This is an important distinction.

A phonological delay means a child is following the normal pattern of development, just more slowly.
A phonological disorder means the child is using atypical patterns, or continuing age-expected patterns well beyond when they should have resolved.

A speech and language assessment helps identify:

which processes are present
how many are affecting speech
how consistent the errors are
and whether intervention is needed

Signs it may be time to seek speech therapy

You may want to seek professional advice if your child:

is 3½ years or older and still hard to understand
is understood well by family but not by others
becomes frustrated or avoids talking
has difficulty with phonics or spelling
uses several phonological processes at once
has not made progress despite time and encouragement

Early support does not mean something is ‘wrong’. It simply helps speech development move forward more efficiently.Research consistently shows that unresolved phonological processes beyond the expected age can impact intelligibility, literacy and confidence (Dodd, 2014; Bowen, 2015).

How speech therapy helps phonological development

Phonological therapy is not about drilling individual sounds endlessly.

Instead, therapy focuses on:

helping children recognise sound patterns
building awareness of contrasts (e.g. ‘tar’ vs ‘car’)
practising speech in meaningful, playful ways
supporting generalisation so progress carries into everyday speech

For school-aged children, therapy is usually structured, motivating and highly targeted and progress can be very encouraging.

A final reassurance

Many children with phonological difficulties go on to develop clear, confident speech with the right support.

If you’re unsure whether your child’s speech is ‘just a phase’ or something that needs attention, a professional assessment can give clarity and peace of mind.

If you’d like support or advice, please contact me and I can help guide the next steps.

Sonja McGeachie

Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.

Research references

Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists Member

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

Speech and Language Therapy · Top tips

Five ways to increase confidence and reduce frustration in children with speech and language and communication difficulties
ByLondon Speech and Feeding February 27, 2023February 10, 2023

Your child’s speech, language and communication difficulties may impact their self-esteem. And they may show signs of increased frustration. You want them to be full of confidence, increasing their participation in school and fully engaging with their peers.

1. Practise active listening

Speech difficulties can mean that it’s more challenging to understand what your child says. It’s important to show that you’re paying attention, giving them time to express themselves. Focus on what your child says rather than how they are speaking. Remember to maintain eye contact, and actively listen. Active listening and giving time can be trickier than it sounds. I can provide strategies to support your active listening skills.

2. Give other means and forms of communication

Allowing children to express themselves in a variety of ways (e.g., gesture, signs, written, use descriptions to describe a word (e.g., sand – you find it out the beach, it can have pebbles on it, it’s not the sea), use of symbols or high-tech augmentative communication methods such as a computer). Using different ways is vital in reducing frustration and communicating their message. If you’re unsure of what other forms of communication you can use, please contact me for some top tips.

3. Praise efforts

Providing specific praise allows your child to understand what they’ve achieved. E.g., you could praise the way your child listens, or how they take turns, or their resilience (e.g., “I like the way you listened” or “good listening”). Think of different ways you could praise you child during different activities, so you are prepared with phrases that you can use.

4. Have clear start and end points in activities

Some children with speech, language and communication needs have difficulties with transitioning from one activity to another. They also have difficulties with changes in routine. This can add to their frustration and changes in behaviour. So, how do you show a clear start and end to an activity? You can have a visual timetable, or you could have ‘start’ and ‘finish’ boxes where you place all the materials in the box labelled ‘start’. And once the activity has finished, you put the items in the box labelled ’finished’. If you need support with transitions, please contact me.

5. Use visuals

Visuals can support your child to understand routine and spoken language. Visuals can range from symbols to online images, to photographs, or a combination. Explore which type of visuals work well for your children. Using visuals can be powerful if used correctly. Make the most of the opportunities that visuals can provide for your family.

Increase confidence and reduce frustration in children with speech and language and communication difficulties today. Please feel free to contact me if you need any support or tips on maximising these opportunities.

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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Autism Therapy · Echolalia · Neurodiversity · Speech and Language Therapy

How parent coaching turns story time into a communication success
ByLondon Speech and Feeding October 6, 2025October 2, 2025
We often hear from parents who are trying their best to connect with their child, especially when reading books, but are met with frustration. They’ll say, ‘I read the book exactly as it’s written, but my child can’t focus for very long and just runs off!’ or ‘my child just flicks through the pages then turns it upside down and runs off with it’ or similar.

It’s a common story. Traditional reading—going through the text from cover-to-cover—has its place of course, but for little ones with a language delay or autism it can move too quickly and place all the focus on the book’s words, not on the interaction.

But what if I told you that story time could become one of the most fun and productive times for your child’s communication development?

Watch the fantastic little video clip above! You can see the pure joy and connection between this dad and his son. This is the same family who, just a few weeks ago, felt defeated when trying to read a book, with their child quickly losing interest and leaving the reading/book corner.

What changed?

The power of parent coaching and Hanen principles

The difference you see in the video is the direct result of parent interaction therapy, or parent coaching, based on the internationally recognised Hanen principles.

I didn’t ‘fix’ the child. Instead, I coached the parents in a few simple, powerful strategies that completely changed the dynamic of their interaction. Instead of being a time for teaching and instruction, story time became a back-and-forth conversation.

Here are the four major transformations that coaching helped this family achieve:

1. From reader to play partner

Before coaching, the parents felt their job was to read the text and to teach the words in it to their child. Now, their job is to follow their child’s lead. They learned to Observe, Wait, and Listen (OWL). If the child points to the tree or the badger on the page, the parent talks about the tree or the badger.

The result

The child is now initiating and leading the conversation! He is sharing what he finds interesting, which makes him feel powerful and keeps him deeply engaged.

2. Building connection and attention

When parents focus solely on reading, they often forget to make frequent eye contact and use animated facial expressions. The principles taught them to put the text aside and prioritise connection.

The result

Our little boy is looking at his dad more frequently, making great eye contact, and clearly having fun! When the interaction is fun, the child’s attention span naturally lengthens, allowing him to attend to the book and the interaction for a much longer time.

3. Creating opportunities for communication

The parents learned simple ways to prompt communication without pressure. They stopped asking knowledge-based questions (‘What colour is that? Or point to the pig!’), which can feel like a test.

Instead, they learned to use techniques like ‘Saying less and pausing’ or ‘copying their little one’s echolalia ‘, signalling that they are very interested in what he is saying and that his communication matters!

The result

The child is now spontaneously using strings of sounds and gestures to communicate his needs and interests, knowing and enjoying his parents’ enthusiastic responses.

This video is a testament to the fact that you are your child’s best therapist. With the right tools and coaching, you can transform everyday routines, like reading a book, into the most joyful and effective communication sessions.

4. Acknowledging and interpreting echolalia

In the video, you may hear the little boy repeat a phrase from the book or from what his dad just said. This is called echolalia, and for a long time, it was often dismissed or discouraged.

However, a core principle of our parent coaching is that echolalia is communication. For children who are ‘Gestalt Language Processors,’ these memorised phrases (or ‘gestalts’) are their building blocks of language.

The key is not to stop the repetition, but to become a ‘language detective’ and ‘interpreter’!

By modelling the correct, first-person phrase right after the echo, parents/caregivers are teaching a child how to break down the ‘chunk’ and use the individual words functionally. They are showing their child: ‘I heard you. Your communication makes sense to me.’

This strategy is a game-changer because it:
1. Validates the child’s communication: It honours the child’s natural way of learning language, which boosts their confidence and willingness to communicate.
2. Facilitates language development: It provides the child with the next step—a meaningful, functional phrase—to move them from repeating language to generating their own spontaneous sentences.
Look at the child’s face again in the video. When his dad acknowledges and interprets his communication, you see that spark of joy and connection—that’s the moment when true, functional language learning happens!

Ready to unlock the potential in your family’s story time? Contact me to learn more about our parent coaching programs.

Sonja McGeachie

Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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Autism Therapy · Neurodiversity · Speech and Language Therapy

Chaining: A powerful tool for phonological development
ByLondon Speech and Feeding November 18, 2024November 13, 2024
Understanding chaining

Chaining is a therapeutic technique I like to use in my speech therapy work with children who have Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) or phonological speech sound difficulties. It helps to break down a complex target behaviour into smaller, more manageable steps. By systematically teaching and reinforcing each step, I can help my students achieve their communication goals.

There are two types of chaining: Forward and backward chaining

Today I am going to show and talk about backward chaining. This technique involves starting with the last step and working backward to the first. This approach can be particularly effective for children with persistent speech sound difficulties where combining consonants into clusters, such as /BL/ or /FR/ or /SHR/ is very difficult.

Backward chaining allows my student to experience immediate success and build his confidence.

In my video I show you how I applied backward chaining to the words ‘Shriek’, ‘Shrub’, ‘Shrimp’ etc

My student struggles with both the /SH/ and the /R/ sounds and we have been working on both sounds for some weeks now. He has mild Childhood Apraxia of Speech and he has difficulties with coordinating his tongue movements, breathing and using his jaw effectively to make words. His sound repertoire has grown a lot since we started working together last year. Today in this session I show you how we pulled both the sound /SH/ together with /REEK/ to make ‘SHRIEK’. I love using the pictures and therapy materials from Adventures in Speech Pathology.

This is also part of the Complexity approach which I will explain in a separate blog post.
- Step 1 (not shown in the video): I explain what the word means; I find that when my student understands what a word means he is much better at saying it. It increases his confidence and motivation to say a word that he knows the meaning of. Often this student does not tell me that he does not know what a word means, so I always remind myself to check that out first.
- Step 2 (not shown in the video): We do a little rhyming game and think about what any one word rhymes with: ‘Shriek’ – ‘meek’, ‘weak’, ‘seek’.
- Step 3: I show my student that there are two parts to this word /reek/ and the sound /SH/.
- Step 3: We practise the easier part: /reek/ /reek/ /reek/.
- Step 4: We add the /SH/ sound and pull it together to make our target word ‘Shriek’.
/REEK/ /REEK/ /REEK/ + /SH/ = ‘SHRIEK’
/RUB/ /RUB/ /RUB/ + /SH/ = ‘SHRUB’
/RUG/ /RUG/ /RUG/ + /SH/ = ‘SHRUG’

By breaking down the word into smaller, manageable steps, my student can focus on each syllable individually, get that right and then gradually build up to the full word. This approach can help to reduce frustration and increase motivation.

Forward chaining

Forward chaining is the same process but in reverse: we start with the front sound or syllable and work forward towards the next/last part of the word:

/SH/ + /REEK/ = ‘SHRIEK’
/SH/ + /RUB/ = ‘SHRUB’
/SH/ + /RUG/ = ‘SHRUG’

Benefits of chaining
- Increased motivation: By starting with the last step, my student experiences success, which boosts his motivation to continue trying to say the word and trying other words.
- Reduced frustration: Breaking down the target behaviour into smaller steps can make the task less overwhelming, reducing frustration and anxiety.
- Improved confidence: As the little learner masters each of the step, his confidence and self-esteem increases. Again, this leads to increased motivation.
- Faster learning: By focusing on the final step first, and practising lots of chaining (forward and backward), a student can quickly learn to generalise to other words.
Backward chaining (and forward chaining) is a really great tool for teaching complex speech sounds and words to children with phonological disorders.

Watch out for my next blog which is all about the complexity approach in Phonology.

Do get in touch if your child has a speech sound disorder, I would love to help.

Any questions or need help with supporting your little one’s language please contact me via my contact form, or you could also check out www.hanen.org for advice and lots of inspiration.

Sonja McGeachie

Early Intervention Speech and Language Therapist

Feeding and Dysphagia (Swallowing) Specialist The London Speech and Feeding Practice

The London Speech and Feeding Practice

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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Speech and Language Therapy

Why I love ‘Colourful Semantics’ in speech therapy
ByLondon Speech and Feeding May 28, 2026May 28, 2026
One of the most common concerns parents bring to speech and language therapy is:
‘My child understands so much… but they struggle to put sentences together’.

Some children use only single words.
Others miss out key parts of sentences.
Some mix up word order.
Others find it difficult to answer questions or explain their ideas clearly.

This is where one of my favourite therapy approaches can be incredibly powerful: Colourful Semantics.

Colourful Semantics is a highly effective and evidence-informed way of supporting children to build stronger sentence structure, grammar, understanding, and expressive language skills.

It is a visual approach to language development originally created by a UK Speech and Language Therapist, Alyson Bryan in 1997 to help children understand how sentences are organised.

Different parts of a sentence are represented by different colours.

For example:
- Who? is orange.
- What doing? is yellow.
- What? is green.
- Where? is blue.
As children progress more colours are added:
- To Whom? Is pink.
- Adjectives (what like) is purple.
- Time Phrase is brown.
Using colours gives children a visual framework for building sentences in a way that feels structured, predictable, and achievable.

Instead of language feeling abstract and overwhelming, children can see how sentences fit together.

For many children, this is massively helpful as it gives structure and predictability.

Why some children struggle with sentences

Language development is incredibly complex.

To build a sentence, we need to:
- think of vocabulary
- organise grammar
- sequence words
- understand meaning
- remember sentence structure
- physically say the words clearly enough to communicate
That is a huge amount happening all at once.

Some children may:
- leave out verbs
- miss pronouns
- use immature grammar
- struggle with word order
- rely on very short phrases
- find it difficult to expand beyond single words.
For example:
- ‘Boy jump’
- ‘Him eating’
- ‘Dog there’
- ‘Want juice’.
These children often know more than they can express.

Colourful Semantics helps bridge that gap.

Why visual supports matter

Many children—especially those with language delays, developmental language disorder (DLD), autism, or social communication difficulties—benefit enormously from visual support.

Visual systems reduce the processing load.

Instead of relying only on spoken language, children are given an additional way to organise information.

The colours act almost like ‘anchors’ for language.

A child may begin to understand:
- orange = who
- yellow = action
- green = object
- blue = place.
This makes sentence building more concrete and less overwhelming.

It also supports children who struggle with:
- attention
- auditory memory
- processing spoken language
- sequencing
- confidence using language independently.
Supporting sentence expansion naturally

One of the things I love most about Colourful Semantics is how flexible it is.

It can be used:
- in play
- with books
- during conversation
- with picture scenes
- in storytelling
- during movement activities
- within everyday routines.
Therapy does not need to feel rigid or worksheet-heavy.

Many children who usually avoid talking become much more willing to attempt longer sentences when they feel successful.

Children often begin to use:
- verbs more accurately
- pronouns more consistently
- better word order
- improved sentence organisation
- and more complete ideas.
For example, instead of:
- ‘Him running’
A child may gradually move toward:
- ‘He is running.’
The colours help children understand the ‘jobs’ words have within a sentence.

This is particularly useful for children who need explicit teaching of language structure rather than simply learning through exposure alone.

Supporting children with speech difficulties too

One thing I particularly value in therapy is approaches that support multiple communication areas at once.

Colourful Semantics is excellent for this.

While building sentences, we can also naturally target:
- speech sounds
- intelligibility
- vocabulary
- social communication
- turn-taking
- attention and listening
- confidence speaking.
For example, if a child is working on the /K/ sound, we might intentionally build sentences containing target words:
- ‘The cat is coming.’
- ‘The boy is kicking.’
- ‘The duck is in the box.’
This allows speech and language goals to work together rather than separately.

Therapy becomes more functional, meaningful, and engaging.

Building confidence through success

One of the biggest barriers many children experience is not simply language difficulty. It is the emotional impact of struggling to communicate.

Some children become frustrated.
Others withdraw.
Some stop attempting longer sentences altogether because communication feels too hard.

Colourful Semantics can help rebuild confidence because it gives children a clear structure for success. That feeling matters enormously.

When children feel successful, they participate more.
They attempt more.
They communicate more.

And communication grows through communication.

Why I use colourful semantics

There is no single ‘magic’ therapy approach for every child.

But Colourful Semantics remains one of the most versatile and effective tools I use because it can be adapted so beautifully to individual children.

It supports:
- early language
- grammar
- sentence structure
- comprehension
- expressive language
- storytelling
- confidence
- functional communication.
Most importantly, it helps children organise language in a way that finally starts to make sense to them.

And when language starts to make sense, communication can truly begin to flourish.

Contact me via my contact form if you would like me to work with your child.

Sonja McGeachie

Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.

Reference

Bryan A (1997) Colourful semantics. In: Chiat S, Law J, and Marshall J (eds) Language disorders in children and adults: psycholinguistic approaches to therapy. London: Whurr, 143–61.

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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Autism Therapy · Neurodiversity · Speech and Language Therapy

A helpful addition in my toolbox for lisp correction
ByLondon Speech and Feeding November 27, 2024November 27, 2024
Meet the MUPPY – a vestibular orthodontic plate

I have become very well versed in Lisp Correction because so many children come to me with this problem! And I absolutely love lisp correction and Articulation Therapy! Please take a look at my blog on tips and tricks for correcting a lisp.

The MUPPY

Over the years I have created my unique style of remediating an Interdental Lisp and as part of my treatment I sometimes use an Orthodontic Tool, called the ‘MUPPY’, which I purchase directly from Germany. I first discovered it some years ago when working with a child with Down Syndrome. Back then I was searching for additional support with my student’s jaw grading and mouth closure difficulties and that’s when I first came across this little tool as recommended by one of my colleagues, a specialist orthodontist in Germany.

I was a bit sceptical at first but I have used it now many times for three years on a variety of clients with varying degrees of lisps. I find it really helps together and in addition to all my other techniques which are language and motor based.

How do I use it?

The MUPPY is a custom-made mouth plate that gently repositions the tongue, encouraging correct tongue placement for clearer speech. It sits comfortably between the lips and teeth; a thin wire sits right behind the teeth, inside the oral cavity.

The plate I like to use for lisp correction has a pearl in the middle. As soon as it is in situ the tongue starts fishing for the pearl and thereby keeps on moving up towards the correct place on the hard palate, just behind the front teeth. This is the place where the tongue tip needs to be for all the alveolar sounds our students find so hard to make.

How does this help reduce a lisp?

A lisp results mainly from incorrect tongue placement during sound production – though at times atypical dentition also contributes to the problem. Specifically, an interdental lisp occurs when the tongue protrudes between the teeth during the production of sounds like /S/ and /Z/. The tongue is often described by parents as ‘thrusting forward’ but I find that is rarely the case. Most often the tongue simply protrudes forward, which is different to tongue thrusting, a more forceful and involuntary movement. Most often I see a habitual tongue protrusion not only for /S/ and /Z/ but also for /T/, /D/, /L/ and /N/. Often /SH/ and ZH/ are also affected.

To visualise this:
1. A correct /S/ sound looks like this: The tongue tip is raised and touches the alveolar ridge (the bony, slightly uneven ridge behind the upper teeth). The sides of the tongue touch the upper molars.
2. Interdental lisp: The tongue tip protrudes between the front teeth, creating a /TH/ sound.
3. Lateral lisp: Here the mechanics of the tongue are different. But using the MUPPY can help here too. To visualise a lateral lisp, the sides of the tongue are not raised high enough, allowing air to escape over the sides. This results in a ‘slushy’ or ‘wet’ sound.
Understanding the specific type of lisp is crucial for targeted therapy and successful correction.

The Vestibular Plate (Muppy) HELPS to guide the tongue towards the right place from where we shape the NEW SOUND.

Methods

Most important to my articulation work re lisping are the motor- and language-based techniques I use, as broadly described below:
- A thorough oral examination, tongue movements, lip closure, dentition, jaw grading, breath coordination, cheek tonicity, palatal form
- Discussion on awareness and motivation of child to work on their speech
- Contrasting sounds at the beginning and end of words: sing vs thing / sink vs think / mess vs mesh etc to raise awareness that it matters what sounds we use in speech and that just one sound can change the meaning of a word completely
- Mirror work, pulling faces, moving our tongue voluntarily
- Exploring the oral cavity and thinking about all the parts of the tongue and the palate
- Finding the alveolar ridge and placing the tongue there at rest
- Then working towards a good baseline of the other alveolar sounds: /T/ /D/ /L/ /N/ and from there we work towards our NEW /S/ SOUND.
I use a variety of picture clues depending on what is most meaningful for my student:

The child likes a train set, I use the TIRED TRAIN SOUND.

The child knows about bike or car tyres, I use the FLAT TYRE SOUND.

With a student who loves a balloon I might use the FLAT BALLOON SOUND.

And we work our way from correct tongue placement to these long /SSSSSSSSS/ sounds with the help of these visual cues, but also gestural and hand cues such as Jane Passy’s Cued Articulation sound for /S/.

I really love helping children correct their speech sound, be it an articulatory difficulty like the lisp or a phonological difficulty such as ‘fronting’ or ‘gliding’ and I also love working with motor-based speech difficulties we see in Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Feel invited to get in touch if your child needs help in these areas.

Sonja McGeachie

Early Intervention Speech and Language Therapist

Feeding and Dysphagia (Swallowing) Specialist The London Speech and Feeding Practice

The London Speech and Feeding Practice

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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Autism Therapy · Speech and Language Therapy

Explore how Intensive Interaction develops Autistic children’s communication
ByLondon Speech and Feeding July 31, 2023June 21, 2023
Intensive Interaction is an approach that I might suggest for your child. Here is an overview of this approach to increase your knowledge. There are a range of approaches that overlap and having trained in them all I use them all interchangeably to tailor to each child individually. This approach is particularly good for children who work mostly to their own agenda and find it hard to engage with others.

So, what is Intensive Interaction?

According to its founder, Hewett (1980), the approach “involves mirroring a person’s actions, sounds and facial expressions.” This allows your child to recognise and form communication between themselves and another, in a fun, play-based setting. Attention and listening are the fundamentals to speech and language development. By using the Intensive Interaction approach, we can increase the time your child can attend for and with another person. We are working towards a child enjoying another person’s presence. We are hoping to make gains with playing together with a child, taking turns and achieving reciprocity. That is the platform which we need to start with to build communication, language, words and perhaps even speech.

There are many aspects that this approach supports:
- such as using facial expressions
- being in the presence of other people
- having a shared space
- attending to others
- recognising and using non-verbal behaviours (e.g., gestures)
- making sounds/noises (vocalisations) that have meaning
- and eye contact. Although, we must be careful when suggesting ‘improving’ the use of eye contact. For some individuals making eye contact can be physically painful. So be aware that we are not making our children ‘look’ we are encouraging their natural behaviour.
Who benefits from Intensive Interaction?

Children with more complex communication and learning delay can benefit from the Intensive Interaction approach. Each session can be adapted to the needs of the individual and the sessions can be designed to use the whole or part of the approach. It is especially useful for children who are finding it hard to engage in any way socially with another person. Autistic children who tend to work to their own agenda often benefit from this approach.

How is Intensive Interaction implemented?

You need to have an environment that your child is comfortable in, and to be able to come down to their level so that you can see each other. This is why I often visit children in their own homes to ensure that they are comfortable and that they can withdraw for periods of time if they need to as well.

Ensure your child knows you’re there and you are 100% present. This is very important. I would recommend that you put your phone away for some 10 minutes or so and give your undivided attention to your child for that period of time.

Waiting

Waiting is very important: we need to give your child time to process what is happening around them. After waiting for a response, you might want to start copying any gestures they use, any facial expressions they make, or perhaps imitate any sounds. You’ll want to continue with this for a few minutes to see if the communication between you and your child changes. Remember always take the cues from your child; if they communicate a message with you, respond. It might be that they are ready to finish and that they’ve shown this by walking away or signing.

Giving your child a way to respond is vital. We can use visuals to support their communication. We can create ‘yes’ and ‘no’ symbols so they can use them in a functional way.

A top tip in these sessions is to use mirrors, so that your child can see and begin to recognise their own facial expressions.

There are other programmes that overlap with Intensive Interaction such as Hanen with following your child’s lead and the Gina Davies Curiosity Programme.

Now you know a bit about Intensive Interaction, why not book a call to discuss how we can support your Autistic child’s communication using this evidence-based approach.

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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READ MORE Explore how Intensive Interaction develops Autistic children’s communication