Explore seven activities to encourage speech development in school-aged children

ByLondon Speech and Feeding
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Explore seven activities to encourage speech and language development in school-aged children
Encourage speech and language development in school-aged children

We hear too often parents ask, “what do I need to buy so I can support speech skills at home?” The advice I give is to use what you have at home; you don’t need specific toys or equipment. I’ll give you some ideas so you can adapt them for your child or young person’s interests.

Ensure you know which level your child is working at (e.g., sound level, consonant + vowel, consonant vowel, word, sentence, or generalisation level). If you’re unsure ask your child’s Speech and Language Therapist. The more practice your child has, the better, so practise little and often.

1. Bubbles

Explain to your child that you will play a game. You’ll take it in turns to say their tricky sound and practise at whichever level they are working at/towards.

2. Pop up pirate or similar

Explain the rules of the game to your child (as above). You could stick a picture to each of the swords for variety or stick photos on different characters beginning with their tricky sound. This would be particularly helpful if they are struggling for motivation.

3. ISpy

This is a great game where you can involve the whole family and you can even play it to and from school. Choose their tricky sound and everyone takes it in turns to say “ISpy with my little eye something beginning with [insert tricky sound]”.

4. Hide and seek with words

Explain to your child that you will hide pictures around the room. They will cover their eyes and will be told when they can look. Then they become a word detector and search for the pictures. After they’ve found each one, they are to say the sound (at whichever level they are working at).

5. Name 10!

Your child will name 10 words beginning with their tricky sound. Your Speech and Language Therapist will be able to give you the words at the level they are working at.

6. Sound focused game – silly sentences!

Your child will make silly sentences beginning with their tricky sound. E.g., if your child’s tricky sound is /s/ a silly sentence might be ‘Simon sat on sizzling sausages this Saturday’. Take turns to create them. Allowing your child to hear the correct sound is important for their production skills.

7. Throwing a beanbag on the correct sound

Have their tricky sound and the sound they make placed on the floor. They can use a beanbag or a ball to throw or place on the sound which you produce. Explain what you expecte them to do. Use specific praise (e.g., you listened well).

You can adapt all the above activities to meet your child’s needs. Please feel free to contact me should you need any further advice. I’m here to provide support, reduce your overwhelm and empower you to support your child’s speech and improve their communication. This will in turn reduce their frustration.

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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Similar Posts

Ages and Stages: 0–3 months
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Ages and Stages: 0–3 months

ByLondon Speech and Feeding
Ages and Stages: 0–3 months
Designed by Freepik

What do we offer our babies from 0–3 months old? What toys? What are the best early activities for our baby to develop? I get asked this a lot so here are my suggestions.

You are the best toy

You the parent or the caregiver are the BEST toy a baby could have in the first three months. The most important thing is to talk and sing to your baby, to look and hold your baby and offer your face and voice! Use sing song intonation as much as you can, and as often as possible. We know that babies respond really well to interesting voices, singing or funny sounds. Use your facial expressions!

It is important to encourage early turn taking: leave pauses in between what you say or sing to allow your baby to respond to you. Once you see any signs of your baby responding you continue as if you are having a conversation.

Designed by Freepik

Visual Stimulation

We know that baby’s eyesight still needs to develop in those first months and that a newborn can only distinguish light, shapes and faces. And their distance vision is blurry in the first month. A baby can see up to 15 cm away and this is roughly the distance between the feeders’ face when bottle or breastfeeding the baby.

Black and white

Your baby can see black and white and some shades of grey. So, in the first month you really will need no toys at all other than your face and your voice, your smile, giggle and your hands! Of course, there are a range of black and white visual toys available these days like the ones below. But if you are on a budget, I would say you don’t need those.

From the second to third month a baby can begin to follow objects with their eyes. They recognise a familiar face and now they start reaching for things. Their colour vision is also gradually improving.

Baby gym

One of the best early toys is a ‘baby gym’ where bright and colourful toys dangle off foam padded arches. You can sometimes get ones with a mirror hanging off one of the arches or a mirror sewn into the mat. This is useful as baby likes to look at his/her face at around three months old and this can also be great for tummy time. If you are on a budget this would be the one toy, I would recommend you to get.

If there is no mirror on your baby gym you could get a mirror toy. There are lots out there, this one is a good example. I would probably get a mirror toy that has other sensory components attached so you get more value for money, i.e., three toys in one.

O-ball

Another great toy to get around 2–3 month is an O-ball for easy grasping, bright colours, very lightweight.

Sounds

Lovely early toys are sound makers, bells or rain makers. Some very light weight bells can be attached to your baby’s ankles and they ring every time your baby moves his/her legs. This is a nice and easy introduction to early cause and effect understanding.

Peek-a-boo

A great early game is Peek-a Boo and you could complement your hands hiding your eyes with some nice lightweight pieces of material like a piece of organza veil fabric for example. An added benefit is that later on baby can try and grasp the materials and pull them out of the container.

Music

Music is very important. Turn on the radio to classical or any easy listening station you like. If nothing else you could sing of course! And do not worry about not hitting the right notes your baby won’t judge you (until they are about three years old!)

Designed by Freepik

After three months

At the end of three months your baby is likely to show you the following:

  • makes cooing and early babbling sounds
  • seems to know your face
  • smiles at you socially
  • cries for different needs: hungry, bored, needing attention, looking for you
  • opens and closes hands to try and grasp items
  • takes swipes at dangling
  • kicks his/her legs
  • looks at faces and toys, lights
  • turns his/her head towards sounds
  • starts to understand the world around him/her.

Don’t panic!

But don’t panic at all if you feel your baby has not quite mastered any of those stages. Chances are they are doing so very soon. If you are worried, please do come and bring your baby to our clinic for a screen and we will give you plenty of assurance and ideas on how to help your baby move forward.

On a final note, Early Intervention is key and bringing your baby for a one-off consultation to a speech and language specialist is always a great idea, just to get ideas, to see that baby is on track and to help baby develop.

The earlier you bring your baby the better. Chances are one consultation is all you need and perhaps a six-monthly review to just stay nicely on track.

Look out for my next Ages and Stages from three to six months old!

I look forward to seeing you! Get in touch with me via my contact form.

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 sounds Expectations vs reality
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Speech sounds: Expectations vs reality

ByLondon Speech and Feeding

Sometimes our kids find it hard to listen to sounds in words and hearing the difference between sounds. This is an important skill which we call “sound awareness”. A lack of it can really impact on clear speech sounds production.

Your child might be confusing similar sounding words. Or they might not notice that a TAT is not a CAT for a DOD is not a DOG. Often children with speech sound disorders or difficulties don’t tune into individual sounds or even syllables. Grow your knowledge to support your child.

Read our latest blog on hearing the difference between sounds to develop speech sound production.

Practice makes perfect

There is a lot more to speech sound production than first meets the eye. Did you know that producing the correct speech sound at sentence level is the last piece to the communication puzzle? There’s a lot of practice before your child develops this last stage of speaking clearly. Your Speech and Language Therapist will start by determining if your child can hear the difference between the sound they are producing and the correct sound. So if your child says LIT instead of LICK we might contrast those two words by perhaps using a candle and a lollypop. Each time he/she says LICK they get to have a lick (or 3) on the lolly. But if they say LIT then we light up and blow out a candle. This way your child can see that there is a difference between those words and that the sounds we make actually matter. Fancy that!!

We call this auditory awareness, which is essentially hearing the sounds in words. Don’t be surprised if you hear your child’s therapist model the sound a lot. This is to develop their awareness. The more your child hears a sound, the easier they will find production. Furthermore, your Speech and Language Therapist will work on phonemic awareness (sound structures) such as the difference between a sound (e.g. sh, is one sound) vs a syllable (e.g., shell has one syllable) vs total number of sounds in a word (shell has three sounds sh-e-ll ), like you can see in my little video clip.

Once a child is able to produce a sound on its own and they can hear and identify how a short word is said correctly we can go and repeat lots of similar words with the sound at the beginning or end until it becomes automatic and new neuro pathways are laid in the child’s brain. From there we branch out into short phrases and then eventually sentences.

Six tips to practise auditory discrimination for speech sound production

  1. Sit opposite your child so they can see your mouth or or sit next to the child and place a mirror in front of you so they can see and hear your production.
  2. Make it fun! Once they’ve identified the sounds in the word, play part of a game (e.g., pop up pirate, Jenga, something which allows plenty of turns).
  3. Use car journeys or walking to school to practise (e.g., oh I see a sheep, sh-ee-p, sh-ee-p has three sounds. Can you spot something beginning with /sh/?)
  4. Remember that spellings can differ (e.g., ‘chef’ and ‘shed’ both have the same initial sound).
  5. Talk about what you’re doing with your mouth (e.g., my lips are rounded for /sh/). Your Speech and Language Therapist will be able to support you with this.
  6. Make silly sentences using your child’s special sound (e.g., Sheep show shepherds shearing).

At this stage you are not expecting your child to produce the sound. This is why it’s important that they continually hear an excellent model. If your child attempts speech sound production at any stage, this is to be encouraged as it’s a great opportunity to model the correct version.

Contact me to develop your child’s speech sounds.

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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Milestones of autistic chidren
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Milestones of Autistic Children: Crawling, Walking, and Talking

ByLondon Speech and Feeding
Image by wayhomestudio on Freepik

For all children every milestone achieved is a testament to the unique and intricate process unfolding within each young mind. For autistic children, this journey may present a distinct pattern, with some reaching developmental milestones like crawling, walking, and talking later than their neurotypical peers. Let’s have a look into the fascinating realm of Autism and explore why some autistic children might crawl, walk, and talk later, shedding light on the underlying factors contributing to this unique way of developing.

1. Individual Pacing:

Child development is not a one-size-fits-all journey. Each child, whether neurotypical or autistic, has a unique timeline for achieving milestones. Autistic children, like any other children, follow their own pacing. This individual rhythm might lead them to focus on one set of skills before they progress to others. Like some neurotypical children might focus on talking earlier than walking, autistic children might prioritise other areas before crawling or talking.

2. Neurodevelopmental Complexity:

The human brain is a remarkable entity, with a bewildering array of interconnected processes that lead to us achieving our developmental milestones. Autistic children often have variations in “neural wiring”, which can impact the balance between gross motor skills (crawling, walking) and fine motor skills. Speech and language acquisition falls under fine motor skills and may be momentarily disrupted due to the divergent neurological pathways at play in autism.

2. Sensory Processing Differences:

One of the hallmarks of autism is altered sensory processing. Autistic children often experience sensory stimuli differently than their neurotypical peers. This heightened or diminished sensitivity can influence a child’s desire or ability to engage in activities like crawling and walking. The sensation of movement while crawling or walking, for instance, might be overwhelming for some autistic children, causing them to either avoid or delay these activities.

3. Visual-Spatial Abilities:

Autistic children and adults frequently display excellent visual-spatial abilities. This strength might lead some children to focus more on activities that engage these skills, potentially delaying their engagement with activities like walking or talking. As they navigate their environment and process information visually, they might naturally invest more time in activities that stimulate this particular cognitive ability and strength.

4. Communication Challenges:

For many autistic children, speaking can be a really complex and difficult endeavour. Communication delays are a common feature of autism. This can affect both receptive and expressive language development. While some children might be physically capable of crawling or walking, they may not yet have the tools to communicate their desires and intentions. This leads to a temporary focus on non-speaking forms of expression. This does not mean that they do not communicate at all. But autistic individuals often start out using jargoning or echolalia as a form of communication as well as behaviours and physical forms of communication.

5. Executive Functioning and Motor Skills:

Executive functioning, or abilities for planning, organising, and carrying out tasks, can vary in autistic children. These skills are crucial for activities like crawling, walking, and talking, which need coordination and planning. About 40% of autistic persons have a motor planning difficulty.

6. Intense Interests and Routines:

Autistic children often develop intense interests in specific subjects, sometimes to the exclusion of other activities. These interests might become their primary mode of engagement. They might side-line milestones like crawling, walking, or talking. The mostly rigid adherence to routines and preferences might cause them to allocate more time to their preferred activities. This delays their engagement with other developmental tasks.

How can Speech and Language Therapy help:

Support and Intervention:

Early intervention and regular Speech and Language Therapy play a pivotal role in the developmental journey of autistic children. Therapies tailored to individual needs can aid in bridging the gaps between milestones. Occupational therapy, for example, can help address sensory sensitivities and motor skill challenges that might impact crawling and walking. Speech therapy can help communication development, gradually bridging the gap between non-verbal expressions and spoken language.

For example, we now know that echolalia or jargoning of longer phrases with intonation, repeating scripts from favourite tv shows or songs have many meanings and communicative functions. For example, a child who utters long strings of echolalic utterances, often difficult to understand, might want to do any one of the following:

  • Comment
  • greet
  • ask a question
  • make a request
  • express surprise
  • negate something.

We now understand that the way to support a child with echolalia is to acknowledge all utterances and try and find out what the meaning is behind these scripts. This is very supportive. Over time it will lead a child to move on to understanding and saying more clear and self-generated language. For more information about this Natural Language Acquisition here are some other great websites for you to look at:

Conclusion

In conclusion, the journey of an autistic child’s development is a testament to the uniqueness and complexity of the human mind. The delays or differences in achieving milestones like crawling, walking, and talking can be attributed to a range of factors, including

  • neurodevelopmental intricacies,
  • sensory processing variations,
  • and communication challenges.

It’s crucial to recognise that these delays are not indicative of a lack of potential, but rather a manifestation of the intricate interplay between an autistic child’s strengths and challenges. By embracing these differences and providing tailored support, we can help each autistic child unfold their potential at their own pace.

Do get in touch if you would like to book an appointment where we can explore how to help your child develop and thrive

Do get in touch if you would like to book an appointment where we can explore how to help your child develop and thrive

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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Supporting children and families living with verbal dyspraxia
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Supporting children and families living with verbal dyspraxia

ByLondon Speech and Feeding

“It’s brill-i-ant, it’s brill-ant, it’s brillnt”

Have you ever wondered why children may pronounce a word correctly one minute and in the next breath they struggle to say the same word? It’s equally as frustrating for you as it is for your child. The biggest question of all is WHY? Why does this happen and what causes it? Whilst there are many explanations. When it persists, it might be a condition called verbal dyspraxia.

What is verbal dyspraxia

Verbal dyspraxia is a neurological motor speech disorder that affects the coordination and planning of muscle movements that are needed for speech production. A child may have difficulty making the precise movements needed for speech, which may result in inconsistent and unintelligible speech. Children may also have trouble sequencing sounds and syllables, producing speech sounds accurately, and coordinating the movements of their articulators (e.g., lips, tongue, teeth, jaw). This can lead to a range of speech errors (including sound distortions, substitutions, omissions, and difficulty with rhythm and prosody).

We know that these speech errors, and not being able to get a message across, can be frustrating for children with speech difficulties. Can you imagine talking and limited people understanding you? It’s so tough on children and the people trying to communicate with them.

Creating a person-centred therapy plan is vital. This allows your child to stay motivated, as intervention is likely to be long term. This planning may include favourite words to use during their hobby or favourite activity, or person-centred goals such as ‘giving Alexa an instruction’.

Children with verbal dyspraxia can have several different ways of producing words, which often makes it trickier for them as there’s no consistent pattern to work with. So, we’ve put together some top tips to support their communication and make their (and your) lives a little easier in the process.

Ten ways to make communication easier for your child with verbal dyspraxia

  • Have a list of frequently used words and practise this set. Little and often is best!
  • Use cued articulation to support speech production (ask your Speech and Language Therapist for the gestures)
  • Give time and use active listening. This means showing interest and trying not to think about what is on your never ending ‘to do’ list
  • Reduce frustration in any way that you can. This might mean allowing your child to demonstrate using gestures rather than speech. You might also give top tips for other adults or children who communicate with your child when out and about
  • Talk about the structure of words with your child (i.e., there are two beats/syllables in this word)
  • Show the written form of the word to go alongside their production
  • Split down tasks, so that your child only has to respond to one question at a time, reducing their motor capacity
  • Recognise when your child is working well and when they may need support of an Alternative and Augmentative Communication device
  • Allow all environments to have the same training and equipment (i.e., at school, home, out and about)
  • Have regular periods in the day where your child can practise their specific words in different environments. This can be effective for children with verbal dyspraxia

Do you still have questions? Contact Sonja for support.

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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Lisp

Help! My child has a lisp. What can we do about it?

ByLondon Speech and Feeding

What is a LISP?

There are different types of LISPS. Let me explain:

A lisp is the difficulty making a clear ‘S’ and ‘Z’. Other sounds can also be affected by the tongue protruding too far forward and touching the upper teeth or the upper lip even. ‘T’ and ‘D’ can be produced with ‘too much tongue at the front’ and this can also have an impact on ‘CH’ and often also ‘SH’.

  1. Interdental lisp

Protruding the tongue between the front teeth while attempting ‘S’ or ‘Z’ is referred to as interdental lisp; it can make the speech sound ‘muffled’ or ‘hissy’. Often, we associate a lisp with the person sounding a bit immature. The good news is that this type of lisp is the easiest to correct and, in my practice. I have a 100% success rate with this type of lisp.

  1. Lateral lisp

In a lateral lisp the person produces the ‘S’ and ‘Z’ sounds with the air escaping over the sides of the tongue. This renders the ‘S’ as sounding ‘slushy’ or ‘wet’. This type of lisp is a bit harder to correct than the interdental lisp. In my experience this can be fixed but it might need a bit longer, more intensive therapy than the interdental lisp.

  1. Palatal lisp

With a palatal lisp the ‘S’ sound is attempted with the tongue touching the palate, much further back than it should be. The ‘S’ sounds ‘windy’ and ‘hissy’. This is a quite rare lisp production but it is also not difficult to correct.

These types of speech difficulties come under the category of ‘speech delay of unknown origin’ and may persist into adolescence and adulthood as ‘residual errors‘.

Some thoughts on Treatment in general:

Lisps can be treated successfully by a Speech and Language Therapist. However, for the treatment to work well, a student needs to be able to cooperate and want to improve his or her speech. Lisp remediation entails a fair amount of repetitive work and very young children or unmotivated older children don’t make the best candidates for treatment for this reason. Often students present with other speech, language or social communication difficulties and here the lisp might not be the priority for treating. For example, it might be that due to a student’s Attention Deficit Disorder they are simply not able to focus on speech practice in their daily life.

When should treatment of lisp begin?

Waiting well past 4½ years is not advisable as the longer we wait and do nothing the stronger engrained the erroneous tongue/speech habit will become. The ‘right’ age for therapy for one child may be different from the ‘right’ age for another child even within the same family. So do make an appointment with a speech and language therapist to assess and see whether your child might be ready to start therapy.

Do lots of children lisp—is it normal?

Until the age of about 4–4.5 years old it can be a perfectly normal developmental phase for some children to have the interdental lisp. But when we see and hear a lateral or palatal lisp we ought to act and see a speech and language therapist for sure.

After the age of 4.5 or 5 years old most speech therapists would agree on at least having a look to see if treatment could be started. The longer we wait the harder it is to retrain the brain pathways to adopt new speech habits.

What happens during the first Speech and Language Consultation?

The first consultation takes about an hour and involves screening relevant areas of communicative function. We take a detailed history, examine the anatomy of the child’s mouth and tongue movements. We check for tongue tie, teeth formation, palate structure and function, as well as swallowing patterns.

Then we begin straight away to try and see if any of the alveolar sounds (T/D/L/N) can be produced correctly with the right tongue placement as that would be the starting point from where to shape a good, clear ‘S’ sound.

The first consultation usually ends with home practice being given, explained to parents and another appointment being made for follow up.

Therapy – what does a session look like?

Each therapy session consists of:

  1. Listening to sounds, discriminating sounds, identifying sounds, listening to rhyming sounds, sound awareness. We call this Auditory discrimination of single sounds: can the student hear the difference between two words that are the same apart from the first sound: ‘sing’ and ‘thing’ or ‘sigh’ and ‘thigh’?
  2. Sound production: using a variety of different prompts and cues we will teach how to physically make the new sound. Often, we work on making a NEW sound, instead of correcting the OLD one. We work on imitation of single sounds then gradually we try and make new sounds in short words, then longer words and then phrases and sentences.
  3. Games! We play games and try and have fun in between listening and producing our new sounds to help students stay motivated and even enjoy the therapy session and process.

How long does it take to ‘fix up’ a lisp?

It tends to take about one term with weekly sessions to help a student make good ‘S’ sounds in phrases and sentences. If the student can do the home practice every day in between the weekly sessions, then in most cases I am able to pronounce the lisp as ‘fixed’ after about one term.

After that the student needs to practise, practise, practise, at home and in daily life to keep reminding themselves of their new skills and their new sound production.

It is a matter of reminding and wanting to get it right. Occasionally a student returns to me for another term of simply practising their skills together with me as they are finding it hard for any number of reasons to practise at home. But generally, 8/10 students will be fine after some 12–13 sessions and their speech will be perceived as perfectly typical by family and friends.

If your child has a lisp or any other speech error, please do not hesitate to contact me.

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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Neurodiversity afferming Speech and Language Therapy
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Neurodiversity affirming Speech and Language Therapy

ByLondon Speech and Feeding

Introduction

I am a neurodiversity affirming therapist and I love and endorse play-based therapy. I use it alongside a strengths-focused approach in all my sessions. Find out why we should use these transformative therapy methodologies in all our work and play with our children.

I always have a range of different toys and activities up my sleeve so that when one toy is no longer interesting, that’s fine. ‘Look here’s a new one, how about we try this one?’ When therapy feels like play, children are more likely to be engaged and attentive, which leads to better outcomes.

By using play as a context for Speech and Language Therapy we can create opportunities for children to use and practise their communication skills in a natural, real-life setting. This helps bridge the gap between the therapy room and everyday life.

Goals and targets

What about goals and targets I hear you say? Of course, as Speech and Language Therapists we always have our goals for any particular child. They can be speech goals (we want Bobbi to produce a ‘k’ sound at the end of words) or communication goals (we want Fatima to ask for something by pointing to it rather than grabbing it). And these goals can be achieved where there is a reciprocation and a positive, playful relationship between the adult and the child. That relationship comes through play and fun.

Play and fun

Play is how a child interacts and learns. If it’s fun, interesting, exciting or pleasurable then that is where the magic happens. And that is what we need to return to repeatedly and then see if we can fold our targets into the activity as we go.

As soon as we expect our child to do something and we try and shape their behaviours towards a certain outcome we no longer ‘play’. We are now in teaching mode, where we direct and where we are ‘in charge’. As a neurodiversity affirming therapist, I believe that all play is valid. We must not get into the trap of thinking that only functional play is valid, that there is only one way to play with that car ramp/puzzle/potato head. Our autistic children often need to play in a particular way to navigate their world and we must not try and stop that.

When we affirm and validate our child’s play and copy their play with enthusiasm and respect then, in my experience, all children regardless where they are on the neurodiversity spectrum will begin to engage with us, copy us, and learn how to communicate effectively about things that matter to them.

Play-based therapy allows therapists to tailor interventions to each child’s unique interests and abilities. This individualised approach increases the likelihood of success and progress.

Strengths-Focused Speech Therapy

Strengths-focused therapy emphasizes a child’s strengths and abilities rather than their deficits. It recognises that every person has unique strengths that can be harnessed to overcome challenges.

Focusing on strengths helps us build a positive self-image. This is especially important for children with communication disorders, as it can boost their confidence and self-esteem.

When we encourage children to play in ways that they enjoy and are good at they feel empowered and more in control of their lives and play. This can lead to increased motivation and a sense of ownership over their progress.

Now, imagine the powerful impact that can be achieved by combining play-based therapy and strengths-focused therapy in speech therapy sessions. This dynamic combination brings out the best of both worlds. It creates a therapeutic environment that is not only effective but also enjoyable for children and their families.

As Speech Therapists we can use the child’s strengths and interests as a foundation for play-based activities. This personalisation not only makes therapy more engaging but also more effective.

An example

Charlie, a 3-year-old with social communication challenges, had a deep interest in anything that spins. We used this strength and interest to create a variety of spinning activities. As he is allowed to engage in his spinners, we can practise lots of speech and language and provide great phrases alongside his interest and activities: Ready steady go! Stop! ‘another one’ ‘the red one’ ‘again again’ ‘I love it’ ‘it’s a spinner’ ‘Charlie loves this toy’ ‘it’s going fast’ ‘it’s so fun’ etc..

Over time Charlie started to copy some of these word models and then used them to create his own little phrases, such as ‘the blue one again’. When this occurred, we felt like celebrating because it had come naturally and appropriately to the situation without any coercion or direction. That is what communication is about! Well done Charlie!

Conclusion

Play-based and strengths-focused speech therapy approaches are powerful tools and by combining these approaches, we create a therapeutic environment that is not only effective but also enjoyable and empowering for our clients.

Contact me if you would like your child to have neurodiversity affirming speech and language therapy.

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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