That adorable string of ‘ba-ba-ga-ga-ma-ma’ might sound like baby gibberish, but it’s actually a crucial milestone in your little one’s language development. Babbling or babble, as we call it, is far more than just cute baby noises. It’s a sequence of sounds that lays the foundation for future communication.
Image by freepik
What is babbling?
Babbling typically begins around six months of age, though the timing can vary slightly from baby to baby. It involves your baby experimenting with different sounds, stringing together consonants and vowels. You might hear them repeating sounds like:
‘Ba-ba’
‘Da-da’
‘Ma-ma’
‘Ga-ga’
As they progress, the babbling becomes more complex, with variations in pitch, rhythm, and intonation. It might even sound like they’re having a conversation with you!
Why is babbling so important?
Laying the groundwork for speech: Babbling is like a vocal workout for your baby. By practising these sounds, they’re strengthening the muscles in their mouth, tongue, and vocal cords that are essential for speech.
Developing phonological skills: Through babbling, babies begin to understand the sound patterns of their native language. They’re learning which sounds go together and how they’re used.
Enhancing social interaction: Babbling is a social activity. Babies often babble back and forth with their caregivers, which helps them learn about the give-and-take of communication.
Cognitive development: The act of babbling requires babies to use their brains in new ways. They’re learning to control their vocalisations, pay attention to the sounds they’re making, and connect those sounds to the responses they receive from others.
How can you encourage babbling?
Talk to your baby: Even though they can’t understand your words yet, talking to your baby exposes them to language and encourages them to respond with their own vocalisations.
Imitate their sounds: When your baby babbles, imitate them! This shows them that you’re paying attention and encourages them to keep ‘talking.’
Respond to their babbling: Treat your baby’s babbling as if it’s a real conversation. Respond with words, smiles, and gestures.
Play sound games: Make different sounds for your baby and encourage them to imitate you. This could include animal sounds, silly noises, or simple words.
Read to your baby: Even before they can understand the words, reading to your baby exposes them to the rhythm and sounds of language.
Sing songs: Singing is a fun and engaging way to introduce your baby to new sounds and words.
Use mirrors: Babies often enjoy watching themselves make sounds in a mirror.
Tactile stimulation: Gentle massage around the mouth and face can increase oral awareness and encourage vocalisations.
Vary textures: Offer different textured teethers.
Read books with sound effects: Choose books with animal sounds or other engaging noises.
Blow bubbles: The act of blowing and popping bubbles can encourage vocalisations.
Use visual aids: Show pictures of objects and say their names, emphasising the consonant sounds.
Use exaggerated facial expressions: When you make sounds, exaggerate your mouth movements to help your baby see how sounds are made.
Increase joint attention: Follow the child’s gaze and point to objects that they are looking at and say the name of the object.
When to seek help
If you notice that your baby is not babbling by eight months, it’s a good idea to talk to your speech and language therapist. You might also notice a lack of variation in tone when your child is making sounds, is your baby sounding a little ‘flat’ or monotonous? While every child develops at their own pace, a lack of babbling can sometimes indicate a developmental delay or hearing issue.
Remember, babbling is a gift. So, enjoy those precious moments of ‘baby talk’ and take comfort in knowing that your little one is on the path to becoming a chatterbox!
Do get in touch via my contact form if you are concerned about your child’s development or if you simply want some reassurance that your baby is developing well. We will be delighted to arrange a screening appointment for you and give you support and reassurance.
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.
December is often presented as a time of perfect, reciprocal play. Children are supposed to be unwrapping toys, sharing, and engaging in imaginative scenarios with family. But for parents of young autistic children, this high-pressure, socially demanding period can often feel like a battleground.
If you’ve been told to interrupt your child’s stimming, push for eye contact, or force them to play ‘functionally’ with toys, it’s time to take a deep breath. Those traditional approaches are not only stressful—they often miss the point of your child’s communication.
As a neurodiversity-affirming Speech and Language Therapist, I want to encourage you this December: You are allowed to follow your child’s lead, validate his or her unique interests, and trust that his or her play and movement are profoundly meaningful.
1. Stimming: not a distraction, but a regulator 💡
Stimming is short for self-stimulatory behaviour and includes repetitive movements or sounds like hand flapping, humming, rocking, finger flicking, or repeating phrases (called echolalia).
For years, parents were incorrectly advised to block or eliminate these behaviours. The neurodiversity-affirming view tells us the exact opposite: Stimming is a vital and essential tool for your child’s self-regulation.
Think of stimming as an internal volume dial:
Too loud/overwhelmed: Your child may stim to reduce incoming sensory input (e.g., rocking to ground himself or herself in a busy room).
Too quiet/under-stimulated: Your child may stim to increase sensory input and focus (e.g., running back and forth to maintain alertness).
The shift: validate, don’t block
Instead of saying, ‘Stop flapping your hands’, try to understand the message behind the movement.
Observe: When does the stimming happen? Is it before a meltdown? When your child excited? When your child is bored?
Validate: Name the need, not just the behaviour. You might say, ‘I see your body needs to move fast right now. That helps you calm down!’
Co-regulate: If the stim is unsafe (e.g., head-banging), help your child find a safer, alternative stim that meets the same sensory need (e.g., pushing hard against a wall, squeezing a stress ball).
By validating your child’s need to regulate, you are building trust, reducing anxiety, and teaching him or her critical self-awareness.
2. Autistic play: Meaningful, even if it’s monologue
The traditional idea of ‘good play’ often involves turn-taking, pretending, and specific toy functions (e.g., pushing a train around a track). When an autistic child spends 30 minutes lining up cars, spinning their wheels, or scripting whole scenes from a favourite movie, it can often be dismissed as non-functional or repetitive.
In neurodiversity-affirming practice, we recognise that autistic play is authentic play. These activities are crucial for learning, deep focus, and imaginative development.
Lining up toys may be an exploration of patterns, visual organisation, and order.
Spinning wheels may be a deep interest in cause-and-effect and visual sensory input.
Scripting is often a way to process language, regulate emotions, and practise complex social situations in a safe, controlled way.
Make a change: Join your child’s world, don’t drag them to yours.
Stop trying to force the ‘right’ way to play. Instead, try these neuro-affirming strategies:
Be a co-regulator, not a director: If your child is lining up cars, sit down next to him or her. Instead of moving a car, try handing him or her another car to line up. Focus on the shared interest rather than forcing interaction.
Narrate (don’t question): Avoid constantly asking, ‘What are you doing?’ or ‘What does this car say?’ This puts pressure on your child to perform. Instead, narrate your observations using his or her interest: ‘I see you made a long, straight line of red cars. Look at all the wheels spinning!’
Validate the interest: Show genuine appreciation for your child’s focus. ‘Wow, you know so much about how magnets stick together! That’s incredible.’
3. The communication revolution: Honouring gestalt language processing
Many young autistic children communicate in ways that don’t fit the traditional model of building language word-by-word. Many use Gestalt Language Processing (GLP).
A gestalt language processor learns language in chunks or scripts (e.g., ‘what’s-in-there?’ or ‘ready-go!’). These chunks (or gestalts) are not random; they are often tied to an emotional memory or meaning. Over time, the child breaks down these big chunks into individual words then learns to recombine those words creatively.
If your child repeats movie phrases or whole sentences that seem unrelated, he or she is likely a gestalt language processor!
Affirm the script, then model something useful.
Affirm the script: When your child says a script, respond to the meaning or emotion behind it, not the literal words. If he or she says, ‘We’re going to need a bigger boat’, and he or she is looking at a messy toy pile, he or she may be trying to express overwhelm or a need for help. You can affirm: ‘That pile is too big! I can help you move it.’
Model new ‘mix and match’ scripts: To help your child move from whole scripts to single words, you can model shorter, slightly changed versions of the script, also called ‘mitigated gestalts’. If they say, ‘I want to go home now’, you might model, ‘Let’s go home, now’ or ‘I wanna go home’.
By honouring your child’s communication style, you validate his or her experience and naturally support his or her path to language development—a core part of neurodiversity-affirming SLT.
Your December gift to your little one:
This December, stop trying to make your child fit into a neurotypical box. Instead, make your home a safe space where he or she can be his or her authentic selves.
Prioritise regulation and connection over compliance.
Trust that when your child is regulated, his or her communication, learning, and engagement will flourish naturally. This is the true gift of neurodiversity-affirming 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.
For many children, especially those navigating Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), the challenge isn’t just making individual sounds. It’s the ‘speech gymnastics’ required to move smoothly from one sound to the next.
You might notice that instead of saying ‘Train’, your child says ‘Ter-ain’, or for ‘Frog’, you hear ‘Fer-og’. That sneaky little ‘uh’ sound in the middle is what we call a schwa vowel. In the world of speech science, this is known as epenthesis. It’s essentially a ‘repair strategy’ the brain uses to break up a difficult cluster of sounds into two easier pieces.
While it might seem like a small detail, that tiny vowel makes a big difference in how fluent and clear a child’s speech sounds. In today’s post (and the video below), I am working with my student on ironing out that schwa by focusing on co-articulation—the art of getting the mouth ready for the second sound while still finishing the first.
The ‘best friends’ strategy
To help my student understand this complex movement, I use visual cues and a story. There are many ways to portray two sounds living closely together, but for this session, I used the ‘Best Friends’ story.
In our story, the /T/ and the /R/ are older brother best friends who want to play together. The ‘schwa’ sound is represented by a little sister who keeps trying to jump in the middle of their game! Because my student has a younger sister, this scenario was instantly familiar and helped him visualise why we needed to ‘close the gap’ between those two sounds.
Alternative methods I often use:
Beyond stories, I often use other visual and tactile methods to show the closeness of two sounds:
The sliding finger: I draw two dots on a paper—one for /T/ and one for /R/. We slide a finger quickly from one to the other. I might say, ‘Don’t let the ‘uh’ monster jump in the gap!’
The rubber band: We stretch a rubber band as we speak. I tell my student that the word is one long, smooth stretch, rather than two separate ‘pops’.
Visual cues for ‘quiet’ sounds: I often put my finger to my lips or tap my throat to remind a child to keep the first sound voiceless. If the voice stays ‘off’ during the /T/, it’s much harder for that schwa vowel to creep in.
The importance of ‘pure’ modelling
A major hurdle in clearing up these blends is how we, as adults, model sounds. Often, when teaching the alphabet, we say ‘Kuh’, ‘Puh’ or ‘Tuh’. But if you listen closely, you’re actually adding a vowel! If a child learns that /K/ says ‘Kuh’, it’s only natural they will say ‘Kuh-R’ for /KR/.
To give your child a cleaner blueprint, try modeling ‘pure’ sounds. Think of whispering rather than talking:
The /K/ sound: A short, sharp burst of air from the back of the throat. No voice! (A quiet /K/ click).
The /P/ sound: Just a ‘pop’ of air from the lips. If your throat vibrates, the vowel has snuck in.
The /T/ sound: A tiny tap of the tongue behind the teeth.
Why is this important?
You might ask, ‘If I can still understand them, does it really matter if they say “ter-ain”?’
The goal of speech therapy isn’t just functional communication; it’s building phonological awareness. When a child adds extra vowels, it can eventually impact their literacy. If they hear ‘ter-ain,’ they are much more likely to eventually spell it as ‘terain’ or ‘traint’.
By helping them master these clusters through co-articulation now, we are setting them up for success in reading and writing. And we are giving them the confidence to speak with ease.
Feel free to contact me if your child needs help with clusters or other difficulties either aligned with Childhood Apraxia of Speech or other articulation difficulties.
Sonja McGeachie
Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.
References
Hall, N. (2011). Vowel Epenthesis. In The Blackwell Companion to Phonology (eds M. Oostendorp, C.J. Ewen, E. Hume and K. Rice). In this work, epenthesis is defined as the insertion of a vowel to break up complex consonant clusters into simpler, more manageable syllables. This is often viewed as a ‘repair strategy’ used by the brain when a transition between sounds is too complex to execute quickly.
Aichert, I., & Ziegler, W. (2004)Brain and Language 88(1):148-59. Syllable frequency and syllable structure in apraxia of speech. This research highlights that children with Apraxia often struggle specifically with word-onset clusters, leading to distortions like the schwa.
Browman, C. P., & Goldstein, L. (1992)Phonetica 1992;49(3-4):155-80. Articulatory Phonology: An Overview. This paper explains that fluent speech requires ‘gestural overlap,’ where the movements for two different sounds happen simultaneously. This supports the ‘Best Friends’ method of keeping sounds close together.
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.
Last time we asked: is our child ready tp move to Stage 2 NLA (Natural Language Acquisition stage 2) and we looked at how we can know. Now we know: he/she is ready, they are mixing and matching those scripts quite liberally! Hurrah!
So for example we hear phrases like:
‘let’s go’+ ‘downstairs’
‘it’s’ + ‘downstairs’
‘I see it’ + ‘downstairs‘
‘I want to’ + ‘shoes downstairs’ (I want to put my shoes on downstairs)
To recap, it’s important to listen out to a variety of contexts because if we only hear the single version of a gestalt —this is so great, hurrah!— but that’s not yet Stage 2.
What we can now do on a daily basis to help and support at this time:
1. We need to offer more ‘mix and match’ phrases to help our child establish this new way of communicating.
How’bout … some food / playing / I’ll chase / sleeping / we read a book
I see a … bird / large car / fire engine
I wanna … have a biscuit / have a book / have a snuggle
We’re … going out / going home / going in the car / going upstairs
Here in my video clip of train play I use:
Let’s go
It’s going up the hill
It’s coming down
Ooops it falls!
It’s stopping
Let’s put on another parcel
Ready steady go
Off we go
It’s come off!
Let’s fix it
I can do it
I don’t need help
You can offer these gestalts either with an AAC as you can see me do in the video clip or you can just verbally offer these.
2. Watch out for Pronoun confusion or reversal:
Gestalt kids repeat gestalts, so we don’t want to create ‘pronoun reversal’.
Instead model from a:
first person perspective: ‘I’ / ‘Our’ / ‘Us’
joint perspective: ‘We’ / ‘Let’s’ or a
neutral perspective: ‘It’
You can turn almost any sentence into a good language model once you get used to it. And you can avoid ‘you’ and ‘your’ at the same time!
So instead of saying, ‘Do you want to go to the park?’
You could say:
We wanna go to the park?
Let’s go out?
Shall we go out / to the park?
3. Start providing ‘variation’ in your language modelling:
Instead of just modelling something one way, start thinking about offering a pattern in a couple of other ways, in a couple of different situations, then several ways in several different situations.
Example: once you hear your child saying: ‘it’s raining’ and you know it’s a mitigation, because you don’t often say ‘it’s raining’, or haven’t said it in a while and you know your child says other ‘it’s’ phrases.
4. Use natural intonation that shows you really mean what you’re saying.
You can be animated or try for musical if your child prefers that / doesn’t mind you singing —they might not like it if their hearing is pitch perfect and your singing is off key…—
‘I’m’ + ‘trying to find you!’ (animated, goofy face)
‘I’m’ +’ getting tired!’ (exaggerated stretch and yawn)
‘I’m’ + ‘catching up with you!’ (animated goofy)
‘I’m’ + ‘gonna get you!’ (animated goofy)
‘I’m’ + ‘sad right now’ (exaggerated face and tone of voice)
5. USE SILENCE!
Important, I might not have said this before but we need to hold back sometimes (hard I know) and not constantly offer models. Let our child sit in a bit of silence with us there just observing and waiting for their own offers. This is a very important point. Silence is golden sometimes. Try it out. I am not talking about the silence that comes with a person scrolling on their phone though, we do need to be present and receptive.
You will see this works wonders!
Do get in touch if you would like some in-person or on-line 1:1 support with this. It can be overwhelming to figure it all out alone.
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.
One of the most important things I have learned as a paediatric speech and language therapist is this:
Children do not all learn communication in the same way.
Some children learn best through listening. Some need visual support. Some need movement and gesture. Some benefit from symbols or technology. And many children need multiple supports together before communication truly starts to develop.
That is why flexible, responsive therapy matters so much.
In this short therapy clip, I model just two simple words: ‘Go’ and ‘Up’.
But underneath those tiny moments is a combination of therapeutic strategies:
speech sound prompting
visual cueing
Makaton signing
AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) modelling
repetition
motor planning support
language modelling
total communication principles.
Communication is bigger than speech alone
One of the biggest misconceptions about speech therapy is the idea that communication only ‘counts’ if a child says the word verbally.
In reality, communication comes in many forms:
speech
gesture
facial expression
signing
pointing
symbols
body language
AAC.
This is particularly true for children with:
developmental language disorder (DLD)
autism
motor speech difficulties
childhood apraxia of speech (CAS)
phonological difficulties
global developmental delay
complex communication needs.
These children often need communication to be presented through multiple pathways at once.
That is where total communication approaches become so powerful.
This is important to know: this does not confuse children. In fact, for many children, it does the opposite. It creates clarity.
Research suggests that learning signs alongside spoken language does not hinder speech development and may support overall language acquisition, communication confidence, and vocabulary growth in many children.
For many children, signs actually help speech emerge because they:
reduce communication pressure
build confidence
strengthen understanding of words.
A child who can successfully communicate is far more likely to keep attempting interaction.
The power of AAC and LAMP Words for Life
In the clip, I also model language using an electronic AAC system: LAMP Words for Life.
AAC stands for Augmentative and Alternative Communication.
AAC includes any tool that supports communication beyond speech alone, including:
picture systems
symbol boards
communication books
speech-generating devices.
LAMP Words for Life is one of my favourite AAC systems because it focuses on consistent motor patterns and meaningful language development. Because communication is not about achieving perfection. It is about connection.
And when children are given multiple ways to express themselves, they often become more confident, more engaged, and more willing to interact with the world around them.
That is the true power of total communication 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.
Prosody refers to the ‘music’ of speech — the rhythm, pitch, stress, and volume that convey meaning and emotion beyond the literal words themselves. Think about a monotone statement like ‘Really?’ compared to one with a rising inflection, expressing genuine curiosity.
When I work with children on producing speech sound sequences, we focus on mastering individual sounds and then putting them together into target words. A crucial element that can significantly impact a child’s speech production is ‘prosody’.
In CAS, where the difficulty lies in planning and executing the motor movements for speech, prosody can be a powerful tool for producing clearer words and phrases.
Here’s why working on prosody is an essential tool in CAS speech therapy:
1. It aids Motor Learning:
Apraxia of Speech means that the planning and execution of speech movements are impaired. When we use exaggerated intonation or stress patterns while modelling words, we are providing additional prosodic variation and, therefore, additional auditory cues. These cues often help my student to carry out the correct motor movements for a word or syllable sequence.
For instance, I might say ‘ball’ with a high-pitched emphasis on the ‘b’ sound. This auditory cue might be more effective in guiding the child’s tongue placement than simply repeating the word without variation.
In this little video clip I get my student to say the word ‘snuggle’ (since we were working on that particular sound sequence: snuggle, snout, snore and sneeze) with a high voice and then a lower voice ‘like a bear’ — again it provides that extra auditory cue, but, in addition, the fun aspect also helps to take away the intense focus on a tricky movement pattern.
By now the new pathways have been laid through repeated practice and now automaticity takes over and without too much effort my student can suddenly produce a motor pattern. It’s magical when it happens and gives me such a thrill.
2. It makes speech more engaging and natural sounding:
Children with CAS often sound robotic or flat due to challenges with prosodic elements. By incorporating variations in pitch, volume, and rhythm during therapy, we can help achieve a more natural flow of speech
3. It makes it easier to express our emotions:
Children with CAS often struggle to express themselves emotionally; partly through the difficulty of producing clear words — period, but also in addition due to the difficulties or absence of musicality and rhythm in their speech.
Therefore, it is so important to incorporate activities focused on practising different emotions with varied intonation patterns. This can really empower our students to put emotions into their words.
Good words to practise are fun words like ‘Wow!’ or ‘Yeiih’ or power words and phrases like ‘No!’ or ‘Gimme that’ etc.
Making Therapy Fun and Engaging:
Speech therapy for CAS doesn’t have to be all drills and exercises (though to be fair sometimes we can’t quite get round to making each and every word huge fun though we try…).
I aim to make all my sessions fun and have intrinsic rewards built into the speech practice where possible.
Home practice tips:
Therapy shouldn’t exist in a bubble. Working on prosody during sessions is crucial, but it’s equally important to integrate these skills into everyday interactions. Parents and caregivers can model appropriate prosody during playtime, story time, or even simple conversations. This consistent reinforcement helps our children to generalise their newfound skills and use them naturally in their daily lives.
Sing songs and rhymes: Songs naturally incorporate variations in pitch and rhythm. Singing familiar songs and creating silly rhymes can be a delightful way to practise prosody.
Use puppets and toys: Assign different voices and personalities to puppets or toys. This encourages children to experiment with pitch and volume to differentiate characters.
Read aloud with enthusiasm: Model expressive reading, varying your voice for different characters and emphasising key words. This makes reading time engaging and helps children understand the power of prosody.
Please feel free to contact me if your child has speech sound difficulties. It is my passion. I love supporting children with apraxia.
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.
