There are various great ways to treat speech sound disorders and I use all the approaches available selectively; I decide what works with each individual child and I also vary the approach depending on the child’s frame of mind at any given time during my session.
Some of the approaches are more “drill-based” and require a child to be able to pay attention and really participate actively in the therapy, and this is what I am showing you today with this video clip.
My little student here has been working with me for some time and from only saying a handful of words which were not very easy to understand he has come a long way. He does have some features of Verbal Dyspraxia which I shall briefly outline here:
Making sounds in general is a struggle, especially when asked to copy certain sounds, example: ‘can you say: a ee ou oo?”
Repeating sound sequences or words sequences is hard, for example: “say p-t-k in sequence” or “say fish chips fish chips fish chips
When saying the same word again and again, different mistakes can be heard
Intonation difficulties: speech sounds monotonous
Vocabulary is very limited
Some therapy approaches are more play based, for example the Core Word method: here we pick a few words at a time which are very significant to the child and therefore highly motivating to try and say. These could be characters of Pokemon or Minecraft for example, or simple words like “GO!”
When you watch the video you will see that I use a lot of visual prompting, such as showing him where the tongue is moving to or from. I do this with my index finger and this approach is called Tactile Cueing or “Cued Articulation”. Part of the approach is to give a visual prompt and then reduce the prompt as the learner is more able to produce the correct sounds. Once he can produce the sound on its own, we quickly move to the sound within a word.
I do mix and match my approaches and in fact here I am drilling but I also use the Core Word which for him (YELLOW) — it’s his favourite colour and I happen to have quite a few good games where a YELLOW something or other can be asked for….. WHO KNEW!? 🙂
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.
As a speech and language therapist, I’m often asked about the significance of seemingly simple gestures in child development. One question that comes up frequently is, ‘Why is pointing so important?’ It might seem like a trivial action, but pointing is a powerful communication tool and a critical milestone in a child’s development.
Why is pointing so important?
Let’s delve into the theory behind why pointing matters:
1. Pointing as pre verbal communication:
Before children can use words, they use gestures to communicate their needs and interests. Pointing is one of the earliest and most important gestures. It allows children to:
Request: ‘I want that!’
Protest: ‘No, not that!’
Direct attention: ‘Look at that!’
Share interest: ‘Wow, cool!’
2. Pointing and language development:
Pointing is not just about communicating in the here and now; it also plays a crucial role in language development. Research shows that:
Early pointing predicts later language skills: Children who point more often tend to have larger vocabularies and better grammar later on.
Pointing helps children learn new words: When children point at something, adults tend to label it, providing valuable language input.
Pointing supports joint attention: Joint attention, or the shared focus of two individuals on an object or event, is essential for language learning. Pointing helps establish joint attention, creating opportunities for communication and learning.
3. Pointing and social-emotional development:
Pointing is not just about language; it’s also about social interaction. It allows children to:
Engage with others: Pointing invites others to share their focus and participate in their world.
Express emotions: Pointing can convey excitement, curiosity, or concern.
Develop social understanding: By observing how others respond to their pointing, children learn about social cues and communication.
4. Pointing and cognitive development:
Pointing is linked to cognitive skills, such as:
Understanding object permanence: The ability to know that objects exist even when they are out of sight.
Categorisation: The ability to group similar objects together.
Problem-solving: Pointing can be used to ask for help or to indicate a problem.
5. Types of Pointing:
It’s important to note that there are different types of pointing, each with its own significance:
Imperative pointing: To request something.
Declarative pointing: To share interest or direct attention.
Informative pointing: To provide information.
If you have concerns about your child’s pointing or overall communication development, don’t hesitate to seek professional guidance from a speech-language therapist. Early intervention can make a significant difference in supporting your child’s communication journey.
How can we create opportunities for pointing?
‘Where’s the…?’ games:
Play games like ‘Where’s the doggy?’ or ‘Where’s the ball?’ and encourage your toddler to point to the object.
Start with familiar objects and gradually introduce new ones.
Reading together:
When reading picture books, ask your toddler to point to specific objects or characters on the page.
Use phrases like, ‘Can you point to the puppy?’
Everyday activities:
During daily routines, ask your toddler to point to things they want or need.
For example, ‘Do you want the apple or the banana?’
When walking outside say ‘LOOK’ and encourage pointing.
Use of toys:
Use toys that have buttons or points of interest that when pressed make a noise. Encourage your toddler to point to the area that makes the noise.
Use toys that have many different parts, and ask the toddler to point to a specific part.
Model pointing:
Point yourself:
When you see something interesting, point to it and say the name of the object.
For example, ‘Look! A bird!’
Point to show choices:
When offering choices, point to each item as you name it.
For example, ‘Do you want the blue cup or the red cup?’ (Point to each cup).
Point to indicate direction:
When giving directions, point in the direction you want your toddler to go.
For example, ‘Let’s go that way!’ (Point).
Make it rewarding:
Respond to pointing:
When your toddler points, immediately respond to their communication.
Give them the object they want, or acknowledge what they are pointing at.
Use positive reinforcement:
Praise and encourage your toddler when they point.
Say things like, ‘Good pointing!’ or ‘You showed me the car!’
Show excitement:
When they point to something, show excitement, this will encourage them to point again.
Use specific techniques:
Use gestures and verbal cues:
Combine pointing with verbal cues and other gestures.
For example, say ‘Look!’ while pointing and nodding your head.
Simplify the environment:
Reduce distractions to help your toddler focus on the object you want them to point to.
Use exaggerated movements:
Use large, exaggerated pointing movements to draw your toddler’s attention.
Consider developmental factors:
Age-appropriate expectations:
Remember that pointing develops at different rates for different children.
Be patient and supportive.
Underlying issues:
If your toddler is not pointing by 18 months, or if you have any concerns about their development, consult with a speech and language therapist.
There may be underlying sensory or motor issues.
Key points:
Consistency is key. Practise these strategies regularly.
Make it fun and engaging for your toddler.
Celebrate every success, no matter how small.
If you have any concerns about your child’s development, contact your local health services.
Great toys and items for pointing
1. Interactive books:
Touch-and-feel books: Books with different textures, flaps to lift, and sounds encourage interaction and pointing. ‘Where’s the…?’ questions prompt pointing to specific features.
Books with simple pictures: Clear, uncluttered pictures make it easier for toddlers to focus and point to objects or characters.
2. Cause-and-effect toys:
Activity cubes: These often have buttons, dials, and levers that produce sounds or actions when manipulated, prompting pointing and exploration.
Pop-up toys: Toys where figures pop up or things happen when a button is pressed encourage anticipation and pointing to the action.
Simple musical instruments: A toy piano, drum, or xylophone encourages pointing to the keys/surfaces to make sounds.
3. Toys with parts to manipulate:
Shape sorters: Encourage pointing to the shapes and the matching holes.
Stacking cups or rings: Nesting cups or stacking rings invite pointing to select the correct size or order.
Puzzles with knobs: Simple puzzles with large knobs are easier for toddlers to grasp and point to the pieces.
4. Toys that encourage joint attention:
Bubbles: Blowing bubbles and following them with your eyes and pointing encourages joint attention (shared focus).
Balls: Rolling a ball back and forth and pointing to where it’s going can promote joint attention and turn-taking.
Wind-Up Toys: Wind-up toys that move across the floor can be exciting to follow with pointing.
5. Pretend play toys:
Toy telephones: Encourage pointing to the buttons and pretending to dial.
Dolls and stuffed animals: Pointing to the doll’s eyes, nose, mouth, etc., or asking the child to point to these features on themselves.
Toy food and dishes: Pretend play with food and dishes can involve pointing to request items or indicate actions (e.g., ‘Can I have the apple?’).
Tips for using toys to encourage pointing:
Get involved: Play alongside your toddler, modelling pointing and using language to describe what you’re doing.
Follow their lead: Observe what your child is interested in and use that to encourage pointing.
Limit distractions: Reduce background noise and visual clutter to help your child focus.
Use gestures and words: Combine pointing with words and other gestures (e.g., ‘Look!’ while pointing).
Be patient and positive: Celebrate all attempts at pointing and provide lots of encouragement.
Remember, the most important factor is the interaction you have with your child while playing. Use these toys as tools to create opportunities for communication and joint attention, and your toddler will be well on their way to mastering pointing!
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.
Holiday meals are meant to be joyful and something we all look forward to. But for many children and their families, these occasions can be overwhelming and be the cause of dread and worry. The combination of new smells, unfamiliar foods, loud environments, social expectations, and allergy anxieties can quickly turn what should be a festive time into a stressful one.
For parents of children with sensory processing differences, selective eating challenges, or food allergies, holiday gatherings often require careful planning and a big dose of tolerance and compassion. The good news is that with awareness and a few gentle strategies, you can support your child to feel safe, regulated, and included during festive meals without pressure, tears, or discomfort.
Let’s explore how to make holiday mealtimes calmer, safer, and more connected this season.
🎄 Why holiday meals feel so overwhelming
Holiday gatherings usually combine several sensory triggers all at once:
Noisy, chaotic rooms
Strong smells from a mix of foods we don’t normally cook
Expectations to ‘try everything’ or ‘enjoy it’s sooo good!’
New environments, seating arrangements, or routines
For children with sensory sensitivities, this can feel like a tidal wave of input. Research shows that children who are sensory-sensitive often have heightened responses to smell, taste, and texture, which may lead to avoidance or distress at mealtimes (Cermak, Curtin, & Bandini, 2010).
Add food allergies into the picture and anxiety increases even further for both children and parents. A 2020 study by DunnGalvin et al. found that children with food allergies experience significantly higher stress in shared eating environments, especially when food preparation or contamination risk is hard to control.
So, if your child becomes tearful, shuts down, or refuses to sit at the festive table, it isn’t ‘bad behaviour.’ It’s sensory overload, heightened vigilance, or discomfort communicating through their body.
🌟 Preparing your child for a calmer festive meal
Preparation is especially important for sensory-sensitive or allergy-aware children. Here’s how to set them up for success:
1. Offer predictability through previewing
Before the event, show your child pictures of:
where you’re going
who will be there
the types of foods that might be served
where they might sit
A visual schedule or social story can help reduce anxiety and give your child a sense of control.
2. Pack safe foods without apology
If your child has allergies or selective eating, bring:
‘Safe foods’ you know they will eat
Backup snacks
A separate (their own) plate, if needed
Emergency medication
Announce clear, firm boundaries such as:
‘Ok people, these are Jamie’s safe foods — we’ll stick with these today.’ This will help relatives understand without pressure or judgement.
3. Choose seating that supports sensory regulation
If possible, seat your child:
at the end of the table
near a familiar adult
away from the kitchen (strong smells)
away from noise clusters
give them their favourite toy or fidget whilst waiting
Let them take breaks when needed. This isn’t ‘rude,’ it’s self-regulation.
🍽️ Supporting children during the meal
1. Focus on connection, not consumption
The holidays are not the time to expand your child’s food range. Keeping mealtimes low-pressure actually supports long-term progress.
In fact, the research is clear: pressuring children to eat decreases acceptance and increases refusal (Galloway et al., 2006).
So instead of ‘Just try it!’ try:
‘You don’t have to eat it, you can look at it.’
‘You’re in charge of what goes in your mouth.’
‘You can keep your safe foods on your plate.’
2. Protect your child’s allergy safety
Holiday meals often include:
cross-contamination risks
shared utensils
buffets
homemade dishes without ingredient lists
Use gentle but firm scripts:
‘Because of Ellie’s allergies, we’ll keep her plate separate.’
‘We’ll serve her food ourselves to make sure she stays safe.’
Confidence in your boundary helps others respect it.
3. Manage sensory load in real time
Offer:
headphones
a small chew or fidget toy
a designated ‘calm corner’
time outside for fresh air
a predictable signal for breaks (e.g., a hand squeeze or card)
Remember, sensory regulation is healthcare, not ‘giving in.’
4. Model calm eating
Children learn most from watching.
Slow, happy bites and relaxed facial expressions tell the nervous system: ‘This environment is safe’.
💛 What to say to well-meaning relatives
Families often have big feelings about food. You can prepare nice phrases like:
‘We’re focusing on helping him feel safe around food today.’
‘She has allergies, so we’re sticking to our plan.’
‘We’re avoiding pressure because it helps him eat better long term.’
‘We’re celebrating together, eating is not the goal today.’
Setting expectations ahead of time can reduce awkward moments later.
🎁 The bigger picture: It’s about safety, not ‘picky eating’
Children with allergies, sensory differences, or feeding challenges aren’t trying to be difficult. They are trying to stay safe, regulated, and comfortable.
Your calm presence, gentle boundaries, and preparation create the conditions for a holiday that feels peaceful, not pressured.
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.
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.
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’.
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.
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.
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:
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’?
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.
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.
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.
Let’s break it down into steps to make these complicated words easier to understand. Once you have a deeper understanding, you will then be able to support your child or young person develop their communication skills in the best way as a Gestalt Language Processor. Remember not every child will be a Gestalt Language Processor; if your child uses echolalia and/or has a diagnosis of autism then your child’s way of processing language is most likely different to the classic way children typically learn language.
Let’s start with understanding what each of these words “Gestalt Language Processors” mean.
Gestalt: “the way a thing has been placed or put together”
Language: “a system of human communication”
Processors: “responds to and processes basic instruction”
So, let’s put those meanings together. “Gestalt Language Processors are children who process early language in strings of sounds or chunks.” They tend not to process single words.
It is important to understand this way of processing communication because between 75-90% of children with Autistic Spectrum Conditions process language in this way (Blanc, 2012). We know that it’s important for young people to have their voice heard and to be able to express themselves. So, it’s vital that they move from echolalia to self-generated communication to be able to do this. This means that our children’s communication partners play a vital role in supporting their child’s language. We can support our children by modelling phrases until the child has learnt the process themselves.
Let’s explore an example together
X (who is a gestalt language processor) and his family love to feed the ducks in their spare time; this is an activity that takes place regularly. Let’s look at how you, as the adults, could support X in his communication. Look at the phrases that are used. They are meaningful to the activity with repetition used throughout.
Top tip: You could think of an activity you and your child or young person take part in on a regular basis and brainstorm some key phrases that you could use.
Need a boost in confidence to support your child’s gestalt language processing?
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.
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:
Validates the child’s communication: It honours the child’s natural way of learning language, which boosts their confidence and willingness to communicate.
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.
