What is a Speech and Language – Feeding Therapist?
You’ve probably heard of speech therapists helping people who stutter or struggle to pronounce words. But did you know that they also work with children and adults who have problems with eating and swallowing? This specialised area is called Speech and Language Therapy: Feeding and Swallowing, or Dysphagia Therapy.
Why does a Speech Therapist help with eating and swallowing?
The mouth, tongue, and throat are all involved in both speech and swallowing. When there’s a problem with any of these parts, it can affect both your ability to talk and to eat. For example:
Weak tongue muscles: Can make it hard to chew food and to form sounds.
Difficulty coordinating swallowing: Can lead to choking or aspiration (when food or liquid goes into the lungs).
Sensory issues: Can make certain textures or tastes feel unpleasant or overwhelming.
Communication: If we are not able to express ourselves we are likely to have difficulties during daily mealtimes: how do we ask for ‘more’ of something, how do we say we have had enough or we don’t like a particular food?
How does a Speech and Language Therapist help?
Our work involves a combination of assessment and therapy. We carefully observe how your child feeds, eats and swallows, and we look into your child’s mouth to help us see what the cause of the difficulties are: could be a very highly-arched palate, it could be a very flaccid/low tone tongue, it could be poor dentition. Then, we create a personalised treatment plan to address your specific needs.
Here are some of the things we might do:
Teach swallowing techniques: We can help your child learn strategies to improve or facilitate a safe swallow.
Recommend dietary modifications: We may suggest changes to your child’s diet to make it easier to eat and swallow.
Provide sensory therapy: If your child has sensory needs we can help your child become more comfortable with different textures, tastes, and smells.
Work on oral motor skills: We can help to encourage more effective chewing, or drinking skills, or we can help your child to close his/her mouth more during chewing or drinking from a straw.
Collaborate with other professionals: We often work closely with doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, and dietitians to provide comprehensive care.
What kinds of problems do Speech and Language Therapists help with?
We see a wide range of feeding and swallowing difficulties, including:
Delayed feeding: Children who are slow to develop feeding skills or who have difficulty transitioning to solid foods.
Tongue-ties: Babies can have significant difficulties with feeding when the tongue is very tightly tethered to the floor of the mouth.
Refusal to eat: Children who refuse to eat certain foods or textures.
Aspiration: When food or liquid goes into the lungs, which can lead to pneumonia and other serious complications.
Chewing difficulties: Problems with chewing food, such as difficulty breaking down food or keeping food in the mouth.
Swallowing difficulties: Problems with swallowing, such as feeling like food is stuck or choking.
Neurological conditions: Conditions like cerebral palsy, down syndrome or other genetic syndromes can affect feeding and swallowing.
Developmental delays: Children with developmental delays may have difficulties with feeding and swallowing.
Is there hope?
If your child is struggling with feeding or swallowing, know that there is help available. Speech and Language Therapy can make a significant difference in your and your child’s quality of life. We’re here to support you every step of the way.
Remember, you don’t have to suffer in silence. If you’re concerned about your child feeding or swallowing, please reach out. You can find a Speech and Language Therapist with a Feeding/dysphagia qualification near you via www.asltip.co.uk or contact me.
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.
where the cause is NOT a swallowing problem, but we are having a “fussy eater” in the family, seeming for no obvious reason
When parents have a child who find mealtimes or eating difficult, it can put pressure on the whole family dynamics. Once we have observed a child’s eating and drinking skills and found that they are not swallowing impaired, but are for want of a better word “fussy” or “picky”, we can then start to look at what might be underpinning the food aversions/picky eating/food avoidance. Two of the main questions parents have (of course) are:
‘is my child getting the right nutrition?’
‘how can I have less anxiety-provoking and stressful mealtimes?’
We all tend to have an image in our minds about the ‘perfect mealtime’, and how mealtimes ‘should’ be. Speech and Language Therapists with a Feeding Specialism are the perfect professionals to help you unpick feeding issues. We are trained to look at swallowing and oral skills and we also know a lot about feeding behaviours and sensory difficulties which could be causing your child’s eating avoidance.
Here are some strategies that can support children with their eating:
Create and maintain a mealtime culture that suits your home and lifestyle. Then stick to that. We all need some routine in our lives to thrive. Mealtimes are no different. It might be that you eat in the same place for every meal, with the same knives and forks, concentrating on maintaining good posture. Children learn by repetition so the more familiar it is, the easier they will find it. In the physical sense, our bodies also need preparing for food, regardless of whether we are eating with our mouths or we are tube-fed. We want every child to connect all the dots of the process. It starts with their eyes, noses, expectations, memories of past experiences, feelings and then finally their mouths….
Be an excellent role model. Children learn through watching others, so your child will be observing you without you knowing. Ensure that you are positive about the food you are all eating, and talk about how delicious, tasty, juicy, and yummy the foods are. Make the atmosphere around the dinner table light hearted. Even though you are secretly stressed about your child not eating, try and not show this. Instead pick a topic or put on some nice music, or talk about something your child might be interested in, and try and avoid coercing your child to eat. Leave small finger foods on their plates and have a range of foods available on the table so that your child can see that everyone is eating a range of foods and enjoying them.
Use positive reinforcement. Try and think of mealtimes as fun and motivating. Children who are happy will likely be more inclined to try foods and take part in family mealtimes. Reward all interactions around food, so if your child merely touches a new food then praise this behaviour. Or if your child licks a food just once, again make a nice comment and praise your child for touching and licking the food. The takeaway here is to try and keep all messages positive around food.
Keep offering all types of food. What often happens is that parents stop serving foods they know will not be eaten. This makes sense in a way; we don’t want wastage! However, try and keep the doors open and re-offer all types of foods, even the ones that your child has not wanted in the past. Try and give your child one food they will like and one food they have tasted before and liked before, even a little, and then one new food to try. So, your child always has something to fall back on and they can join in with eating. But they can also try (or at least look at and think about trying) other foods that you and perhaps the siblings are eating.
Take a look at this website, I find it very helpful in showing parents what types of foods and how big a portion to offer
Have a go and try and implement some of the ideas above, and should you get stuck please get in touch!
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.
This is an exciting time for both you and your baby! Between 3 and 6 months, communication literally explodes. While your little one may not be saying words yet, he or she is actively learning to understand and express themselves. Here’s a glimpse into what you can expect:
Understanding:
Recognises familiar voices:
Your baby will likely turn his or her head towards the sound of your or other familiar adults’ voices.
Tips for supporting and expanding: Talk, sing and chant! Your baby will love and smile at hearing your talking voice, and he or she will not be judging your singing talent! You can sing to your hearts content, perhaps some lovely nursery rhymes you remember from your childhood, or festive songs like Jingle bells !. Or you can simply make up your own little songs and chants alongside all the daily activities you do with or for your baby. You could have a ‘nappy’ song, a ‘let’s get you ready for the park’ song, a ‘I’m hungry’ song or a ‘mummy’s cooking soup’ chant. It does not have to be beautiful but what does help is having little rhymes and rhythms to your singing. Your baby will love it and soak it all up.
Begins to understand ‘no’:
Your baby may pause or stop an action when you say ‘no’ and shake your head at the same time.
Tips for supporting and expanding: I don’t think that at this stage you will have much cause to say ‘no’ to be fair but you could do it playfully and bring it into a ‘no more’ situation so that your baby can make the connection between ‘no’ and ‘finished’ or ‘stop’ or ‘done’. Feeding might be a good opportunity for this one. You could also ask ‘who is it’ when someone is ringing the bell or coming down the stairs, e.g. ‘oh I hear footsteps! Is this daddy??…. no it’s not daddy no it’s grandma! daddy’s gone out!’
Responds to his or her name:
Your baby will start to show a reaction when you call his or her name.
Tips for supporting and expanding: Try calling your baby’s name a lot, and get different family members or visitors calling your baby by his or her name and calling his or her name before saying ‘look’ or ‘peek-a boo’ etc.
Use Baby Signing: You can introduce simple gestures and signs such as ‘milk’ ‘nappy’ ‘sleep’ ‘dog’ ‘cat’ etc to help your baby make the connection between what you are saying and what he or she is seeing.
Expressing:
Cooing, gurgling and babbling:
These sounds are more than just adorable! They are your baby’s way of experimenting with his or her voice and learning to control his or her vocal cords.
You might hear sounds like ‘ba-ba-ba’ or ‘ga-ga-ga’. This is a huge milestone!
Tips for Supporting and expanding: This is a wonderful time to copy your baby’s sounds, celebrate them and show your baby that you are listening to his or her sounds and you are understanding everything he or she is saying! This is also a brilliant time to start reading to your baby. You can read any children’s books you fancy. Again your baby will adore the sound of your voice but increasingly he or she will also look at the pages of a book and try and understand and make connections between the words you say and the pictures he or she sees.
When you hear your child babbling you can try and give it meaning where possible, for example your baby says: ‘ba ba ba’ you could fall into ‘Baa Baa black sheep have you any wool’ song or you could say ‘mmmh banana!’ And show a banana that’s lying on the table. Or you could just say: ‘baba baaaaah you are saying ba! That’s so great!’ Anything goes really at this stage!
Facial expressions:
Your baby uses smiles, frowns, and other facial expressions to communicate his or her emotions (happy, sad, angry).
Tips for supporting and expanding: Try and make interesting and exaggerated facial expressions yourself when you are talking to your baby! Try and be a little bit clowney and really practise showing ‘surprise’ ‘boo’ or a big grin, smile, purse your lips, blow raspberries, open and close your mouth and make funny faces. Copy your baby when you see his or her facial expression change. When your baby looks confused, say ’oh we don’t know what’s happening we are confused!’. When your baby looks happy, say ‘you look soo happy! What a lovely smile!’
Eye contact:
Your baby will start making more and more eye contact with you during interactions.
Tips for supporting and expanding: Try and get ‘face to face’ a lot with your baby. When cuddling your baby look at his or her face and often make sure that it is easy for your baby to see and look at you. If you can lower your position so that your face is in line with your baby that will make things easier for you both.
Good games to play: ‘People-Games’ these are games where you do not need any toys to have a good time. All you need is the other person: Peek-a-boo, bumping your baby up and down on your lap with a song, Row Row Row your boat, tickling games, catch you games etc.
Now we are at 6 months another very exciting stage has arrived: feeding SOLIDS to our baby! More of this in my next post!
When to Seek Guidance:
If you have any concerns about your baby’s communication development, please don’t hesitate to consult with me. Early intervention can make a significant difference and really help your baby making progress.
Remember: Every baby develops at his or her own pace. These are general guidelines, and some babies may reach certain milestones earlier or later than others.
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.
Say, your child replaces the ‘f’ sound with a ‘p’ so they say PAN when they mean FAN or POUR when they mean FOUR. Now after one or two therapy sessions we have managed to get your child to “bite your lip and blow” and we are seeing a little ‘f’ sound right there! Result! But now we need to practise this so it becomes a habit, so that we can start building up some little words like FAN and FUR and FAR or FOUR….
Now, for older children, let’s say over 6 years old, we might just get away with saying: ‘darling come and sit down now and do your speech practice quickly before you go and play.’ But for the little ones, under 5 years old, it is often necessary to “package” the practice within daily activities.
Daily activities
So, our goal might be: produce an ‘f’ about 50 times a day. You might think: ‘oh gosh, I won’t be able to do that, it’s too much’, but wait! It can actually be done as part of your daily activities.
Here are some little examples and you will be able to think of some more for sure.
Morning
Before brushing teeth look into the mirror together and say ‘let’s practise our “bunny sound” quickly: bite your lip and blow: FFF FFF FFF FFF FFF FFF FFFF’. Look in the mirror, get as many done here as possible, 10-15, RESULT! Now brush teeth and done.
Mid-morning snack
A … muffin? Pop a little birthday candle on it and say: ‘let’s practice our Bunny Sound here quickly: bite your lip and blow and try and blow out this candle.’ FFF FFF FFF FFF FFF (you might have to re-light it a few times). Do 10-15, now eat the cake, done!
Play
Pretend to fly an aeroplane and say: “’oh look, I can make the ‘bunny sound’ and make a noise at the same time VVV VVV VVV VVV VVV. That’s cool, let’s try. Ten times?’
Lunch
‘Oh, that soup is a bit hot, let’s blow it, let’s do it with our “bunny sound”: FFF FFF FFF.’ Do ten and by now you have done most if not all of your repeats.
Book time
Select a book with a lot of ‘f’ sounds it in or a book with bunnies (your Speech Therapist will make suggestions). Read the book together with your child and each time there is a bunny or a fish practise the FFF FFF FFF FFF.
By now you will probably have exceeded your target of 50 times FFFs a day!!
Story telling
Now for something different like “Story Telling”: your child’s goal might be: “to talk about what’s first, then, next and finally”.
Examples:
Tooth brushing
Ask your child to think about what is first, what’s next and then last before you start brushing teeth.
Meal times
Talk about what did we eat the other day at Nando’s? ‘First, I had xxx then I had xxx. What about you?’ Or as you are about to lay the table: ‘what do we need to do first, then and then?’
Dressing
Pretend to be an alien who does not know what to do first, get it all wrong and have a laugh… ‘oh I think those underpants must go on my head?!’ Etc
Play time
Use figurines with farms or Lego houses or Playmobil and help your child make up simple little stories using first, then next and last.
Books
Share a book with a clear start, middle and finish and talk about the characters, who does what, who is first, then and then and finally.
At the end of each session with your child we will talk about what the targets for the week will be and together we can think about how you can incorporate your practice easily into your daily life, no matter how busy you are!
Be sure to bring this up next time you have your session, so that we can figure out together what will work for you and your daily schedules.
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.
Watch how cued articulation can transform your child’s speech and language skills!
Cued Articulation involves using specific handshapes and placement cues to guide the speaker’s articulators, such as the tongue, lips, and teeth, to produce accurate sounds. It was originally conceptualised by Jane Passy, a speech-language pathologist. But it is important to know that we can, and often do, also use other speech cues which help our student visualise what they need to do. In other words, we can mix and match our cue pictures depending on what works best with each student.
In the beginning of my speech therapy practice I would stick religiously to Jane Passy’s method but over the years I have learned and used many different visual hand cues which all have worked with individual students.
It is important to remember that this is not an exact science, rather than an art! The art is to find the key to each individual student’s understanding and inspire motivation to try out a sound which they find hard to do.
As an example, the hand signs used by Caroline Bowen’s method, an Australian Speech-Language Pathologist, are quite different to Jane Passy’s signs but they can equally work very well. Caroline Bowen’s visual for the /r/ sound is the ‘rowdy rooster’ — a crazed rooster on a motorbike — and the hand signal is that of revving up the motor bike engine with both hands whilst trying out the /r/ sound! I have a good handful of students who really loved this rooster image and were able to eventually produce a good /r/ using this cue.
So, it is horses for courses with many things, and visual images and hand cues are no exception!
Sound picture cards:
Again, there are a host to choose from and I tend to collect a number of different images for each sound I want to practise with my student. As an example, below are a couple of different examples I use for the sound /p/:
The Nuffield Programme suggests to use this popper card, which works well with a student who knows these poppers and perhaps has one on their trousers.
As an alternative, and especially for younger students, I like using the Popper Pig Card – which I also have in my room so I can quickly show how it pops. Or we can have a popping game in between saying the /p/ sound at times. (The popper card is great as I can use the real toy to help with conveying the /p/ sound as it pops.)
Each card has its own merit and I choose the right card for the individual student.
How I use cued articulation and the visuals in Speech Therapy
Cueing and practice: I introduce the appropriate card and handshapes for the targeted sounds. We then practise producing the sounds.
Reinforcement and feedback: Positive reinforcement encourages progress and builds confidence.
Fading out the cues: Once my student is able to say the sound more easily, we can gradually fade out the speech cues.
Benefits and effectiveness
Using Cued Articulation and Speech Image Cards has been shown to be effective in improving speech production for individuals with various speech and language disorders, including:
Articulation disorders: Difficulty producing specific sounds accurately.
Apraxia of speech: A motor planning disorder that affects the ability to sequence and coordinate movements involved in speech.
Phonology disorders or delays: Confusion and delays in how sounds are organised in categories to convey meaning, errors in sound patterns, for example front sounds are produced at the back, or long sounds are produced as stops.
Stuttering: A fluency disorder characterised by interruptions in speech, such as repetitions and prolongations.
Tips for parents and student speech therapists
Parents can play a crucial role in supporting the implementation of cued articulation at home and in therapy sessions. Here are some tips:
Collaborate with your SLT: Good feedback and communication with the Speech and Language Therapist creates consistency and progress..
Practise Regularly: Encourage consistent practice of cued articulation at home to reinforce learning.
Use Visual Aids: Use the same visuals that your therapist uses in the speech clinic to help your child at home with recall and practice.
Feel free to contact me if you need help with your child.
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.
What is Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) and what does a Speech Therapist do?
Speech and language therapists provide treatment, support and care for children and adults who have difficulties with communication, eating, drinking and swallowing. We help children and adults who have problems speaking and communicating.
How to find the perfect therapist for my child/client:
There are a huge number of speech and language difficulties, or feeding and swallowing problems that we can help with and the first thing to think about is what age group the person is you are seeking help for. Most SLT’s specialise in a range of disorders and treatments and they often treat specific age ranges. This could be, for instance, very young children up to 3 years, or school aged children, adolescents or just adults. Once you have narrowed it down to age and general area of difficulty you can then go and seek your perfect SLT match.
Generally it is my view that SLT’s with a narrow area of specialist interest are most likely to help you better if the problem you or your child/adult is having is significant and/or profound. For example, if your child has a very severe stutter/stammer but is otherwise developing fine and has good skills all round, then I would recommend to look for an SLT who only specialises in stammering/stuttering, or has only a small range of other specialist areas related to stammering , such as speech and language delay.
The reason is that it is a tall order for any professional to stay up to date with latest research, latest clinical developments and training for more than, say, five distinct areas of interest.
However, a more generalist Speech therapist who has lots of experience in many different areas could be a very good option for your child or adult who has more general speech and language delay in a number of areas, perhaps a global delay or a syndrome which means that their learning is delayed in general. It also means that your child might benefit from a Generalist SLT because they have many more tools in their SLT bag and your child might need a variety of approaches for several areas.
A good place to start is www.asltip.com which is the Association for Independent Speech and Language Therapists in the UK. Any SLT registered with ASLTIP will also be registered with the HCPC (Health Care Professionals Council), as well as RCSLT (Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists). These two important UK professional regulatory bodies ensure all its members are fully qualified, and are fully up to date with latest developments within their areas of work.
Here you can enter your post code and look for a therapist near you and you can look for specific problems such as stammering for example and narrow down your search. Most therapists have a website which you can then access too. I would recommend you speak to a few therapists on your list and then go with the person you had the best rapport with. You and the therapist will be spending a lot of time together and you will need to feel that you trust them and that you can relax into the process.
How I can help you:
I have 3 main areas of specialism:
Parent Child Interaction Coaching
This is an amazing way to help children with the following difficulties:
Social Communication Difficulties, Autistic Spectrum Disordersand
Speech and Language Delay – for children under the age of 4 years old, this is my preferred way of working because it is so very effective and proven to work. If your child is not developing words or not interacting, has reduced attention and listening and you feel is not progressing or, in fact even regressing, then this way of working is the best. For anyone wanting to read a bit more about the efficacy of this method, below are some research articles. You may also like to check out www.hanen.org which is the mainstay of my work and method when it comes to Parent-Interaction Coaching. You can also look at my latest blog, entitled: Tele-therapy, does it work?
In brief, what’s so great about Parent Coaching is that it empowers you the parent to help your child in daily life! This is where speech, language and social communication develop typically, in a naturalistic way and environment. Simple steps and strategies are discussed and demonstrated every week and you are encouraged to use these strategies with your child in daily routines: getting dressed, having breakfast, on the school run, whilst out in the park or shopping or simply playing at home or having dinner or bath time. Whatever your family routine happens to be, every strategy I teach you will help create a responsive communication environment; generally, if your child is able to develop speech then they will do so in direct response to your changed interaction style.
Speech Sound Disorders, Verbal Dyspraxia, Phonology and Articulation
I love working with children of all ages on developing their speech sounds. Whether your child has a lisp, or a couple of tricky sounds they simply cannot produce quite right, or perhaps your child is really unintelligible because he/she is having lots of different sound errors, making it really hard to understand them. I typically work on getting “most bang for your buck” , meaning I address the sounds that cause the most problems and, therefore, when they are fixed your child/person’s speech becomes that much clearer fairly quickly.
Feeding and Swallowing Difficulties
Having worked for over 20 years in NHS Child Development Clinics and Special Needs Schools I trained and worked with feeding and swallowing difficulties early on in my SLT career. I later trained as a Lactation Consultant and so I am well placed helping and support all types of Infant feeding, both breast or bottle, as well as toddler weaning. I aim to ensure that your little one swallows the right kind of foods and drinks for their abilities. I am experienced in managing and supporting children with physical needs and mobility problems, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome or any other type of syndrome or presentation.
What does a speech therapy session look like?
All sessions differ slightly depending on the age of the child and the nature of the difficulties.
However, mostly our sessions look like FUN! After arrival and washing hands we tend to start off with the tricky work straight away whilst our child still has energy and the will to engage. So, for speech work we will focus on the target sounds first: this could be sitting at a table doing work sheets together, playing games using the target sound and really any type of activity that gives us around 70-100 repeats of the target pattern. For example, a child who is working towards saying a ‘K’ at the end of the word I will try and get around 100 productions of words like: pack/sack/lick/ pick/bike/lake and so on.
Then we often play a fun game where I might try for a ‘rhyming’ activity or other sound awareness type activities, for perhaps 10 minutes and within that time I aim to trial the next sound pattern we need to improve on; I will test which sound your child can do with help from me. During he last 10 minutes we might look at a book, again listening to and producing whatever sound we are working on. If I did not get 100 sounds earlier on in the session I will try and practice them now as part of the story. In total I aim to have about 40-45 minutes of activities, all aimed at the target sound we are working on.
What does a Coaching session look like?
During a Parent Coaching Session we meet online for about an hour and we discuss how the week has been for you trying out the strategies. Typically parents start off recalling what went well, what progress was made and what had been more tricky. We work through it all, and then follow on to the next strategies: I will show you examples and demonstrations of each strategy and I will get you to think about how you can use this with your child and in what situation you might use it. I will explain what we are doing and what the purpose is. You might want to write down what you are going to work on for the week. Over the course of about sessions we can cover all the major strategies that are proven to help kickstart spoken language and/or help your child to connect more with you. Through that connection spoken words most often develop.
Research Papers on the Efficacy of Parent Child Interaction Coaching
The It Takes Two to Talk Program has been shown to be effective in changing how parents interact with their children, and that children’s communication and language skills improve as a result.
Baumwell, L.B., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S. & Bornstein, M.H. (1997). Maternal verbal sensitivity and child language comprehension. Infant Behavior and Development, 20(2), 247-258.
Beckwith, L. & Cohen, S.E. (1989). Maternal responsiveness with preterm infants and later competency. In M.H. Bornstein (Ed.). Maternal responsiveness: Characteristics and consequences: New directions for child development (pp. 75-87). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Is early intervention effective? (Publication No. (CDH) 74-25). Washington, DC: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Child Development.
Girolametto, L. (1988). Improving the social-conversational skills of developmentally delayed children: An intervention study. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 53, 156-167.
Sonja has been a real help for my 5 year old daughter. Due to her support, my daughter is now able to clearly and correctly enunciate ‘th’ ‘f’ and ’s’. She was also helpful in making positional changes to her seating to help her concentrate better and kept her engaged throughout all the lessons which is a feat in itself on zoom!
Helen, Mother of Catherine Age 5.
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.
Is our student ready to move to NLA 2 (Natural Language Acquisition stage 2)?
We know that the GLP (Gestalt Language Processor) will move into the next stage when they are ready. But are they now ready you might think? When are they ready? How do I know? If you are not sure whether your child is ready to move forward then go and see your GLP trained Speech Therapist. Together you can work out what the next steps are and how to help your child settle into NLA 2. It’s very exciting!!
Tip
The first useful tip: keep a language sample of phrases your child says. This is very helpful!
You might want to check with your Speech Therapist and offer some language sampling you have taken so they can help you figure out where your child is currently. Always keep an Utterance Journal that you can share with your Speech Therapist and with others who look after your child.
Basically, we want to listen out for phrases our child says that you or nursery don’t say routinely; that way you can presume that this is not an echo but a mixing together of two chunks of gestalts. Watch out for those coco melon phrases though: double check it really isn’t an NLA 1 gestalt that is copied verbatim from a favourite you tube video.
You can best support your child best by listening, and thus figuring out what your child is TRYING TO SAY. Often your child might skip over the parts of gestalts they don’t want to say. This is common in older kids who have long gestalts, sometimes even whole episodes or whole stories!
Try and tease out their shorter mitigations and then focus on practicing and modelling those as they are so much more useful!
So back to our question: are they ready?
Are their gestalts covering a variety of situations and contexts?
Make a note in your journal to see what the backgrounds are to each phrase you ear, so for example:
Transitioning: ‘it’s time for the park’ ‘what’s next’ ‘shoes on’
Bed Time: ‘we need to wash’ ‘let’s get in (bath/bed)’ ‘ready for our book’
Toilet/nappy: ‘we need the potty’ ‘where’s the potty’ ‘let’s wash hands’
Mealtime: ‘time to eat’ ‘go get a spoon’ ‘yummy num num’
Park/going out: ‘look at the squirrel’ ‘funny doggy’ ‘I wanna swing’
At the shops: ‘let’s get the trolley’ ‘lots of veggies’ ‘no tomatoes’ ‘ooh long queue’ ‘back to the car’
And… does the child use the phrases for a variety of functions?
labelling
providing information
calling out
affirming
requesting
protesting
directing
We need to offer lots of similar language models so that in their own time our children can extract/mitigate useful phrases for what they want to express. The more similar utterances a child hears around him the more he/she can discover the communalities. Once the child has a small range of phrases, he/she can mix them up and create semi-original own phrases.
If the answer is YES!! our child has perhaps not all but a range of functions and a range of situations where they use a variety of easily mitigable gestalts then yes they are ready for moving to stage 2 of NLA!
Hurrah!
Keeping a journal of what your child is saying and in what circumstance is crucial to help with our ongoing detective work!
Next time I will be looking at how we can help our NLA 2 GLP produce even more of their own mix and match phrases.
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.
