Each child develops at a different pace. However, that doesn’t change the fact that speech milestones must be met at certain ages. For instance, if your child has not begun to babble yet at four months or has yet to respond to your attempts at communication by the first year, these might indicate that they're experiencing a developmental delay.

If you’re concerned that your child might be having issues in their speech and language development, then the best thing to do is to consult a professional. Search for a highly rated speech therapist option. They will help you determine the steps that you can take to better assist your child, especially at home. A quick internet search for a term like "NDIS speech therapy near me" should already pull up a list of experts that you can reach out to.

This kind of intervention is called speech therapy. Today, we'll share some of the activities and exercises where you can incorporate speech therapy that we have personally tried and tested in hopes of helping you find a speech therapy idea that best fits your child.

What Is Speech Therapy?

First of all, allow us to define what speech therapy is. As we have mentioned, it is a method that speech-language pathologists use to help children improve their speech and language skills. It includes various techniques that seek to assist in communication, such as articulation and comprehension.

What Happens During a Speech Therapy Session?

After performing a comprehensive assessment of your child’s case, the speech-language pathologist will then go ahead and perform a variety of exercises and activities depending on your child’s age, disorder, and needs. These activities may include:

●     Structured and interactive play that encourages communication

●     The use of various materials including books, flashcards, and other objects to stimulate language development

●     Modeling the correct ways of producing sound units to improve your child’s pronunciation skills

Can You Perform Speech Therapy at Home?

The answer is yes and no. Yes, there are a lot of speech therapy techniques that you can certainly perform at home to help your child improve their communication skills. However, this is only recommended for mild speech issues.

We recommend seeking professional help for more serious speech regression and impairment cases. It will also allow you to ask your therapist about the best ways to address your child’s particular issues.

Speech Therapy Exercises You Can Do at Home

Whatever the case, here are some speech therapy exercises that you can perform at home to help you get started:

●     Sing

Singing is a fun and effective way to perform speech therapy. It can build your child’s communication confidence, help them learn and memorize new words, and even teach them about the rhythm and tone of language.

●     Read Aloud

Like singing, reading books with your child can also help build their vocabulary and strengthen their comprehension. Just be sure to select books that match their age and interests.

●     Make Silly Noises

We have yet to meet a child who has gotten bored of making silly noises. This makes it very efficient in practicing the different sounds necessary for speech while also training the muscles by the mouth and around the face一elements that are all necessary for articulation.

●     Use Straws

Speaking of mouth and facial muscles, you can also train them by using straws in your speech activities. Suck through them, blow through them, play games with them. Keep in mind that the muscles involved in using straws are the same ones we use to create the sounds needed in clear speech.

●     Take Advantage of Technology

According to an article published on NPR, technology has been a great help for teachers to teach their students with various disabilities at the comfort of their homes amidst the current global health crisis. However, connection is not the only purpose that it can serve. You'll find an abundance of digital tools and platforms specifically designed to guide speech therapy activities at home.

Otsimo, the Speech and Language Therapy mobile application, is a good example. It is currently the only app equipped with a machine learning-supported voice and speech recognition technology that enables it to understand what its users are actually trying to say.

It is specifically designed for kids with delayed speech, stuttering, articulation issues, and other speech and language development issues.

Performing Speech Therapy at Home

Speech therapy is not something that you should limit within the four walls of your speech-language pathologist’s clinic.

According to Anne Densmore, Ed. D. in an article published by Harvard, she prefers to take her speech-language therapy out of the clinic or classroom setting and even move it outdoors, in a summer camp. It makes the process more fun, exciting, and thus, effective, especially for preschoolers. After all, you'll find lots of speech therapy exercises that you can do anywhere, even within the comforts of your own home.

Please don’t limit yourself to the methods we have shared above. There are definitely other techniques that you can explore aside from the ones we have featured in this article. These were simply the ones we have personally tried and tested ourselves.