It takes repetition, persistence, practice, and persistence to develop speech and language skills. For your child’s success and progress, reinforcement of speech and language skills are crucial. There’s a good possibility that your speech-language pathologist has given homework between sessions to your child.
Learning valuable speech and language skills is like learning another skill, such as mastering an instrument or learning a new sport or subject.
This article will explain why home speech practice matters so much and offer some suggestions on how to prioritize practice.
Speech practice helps to maintain progress
Home speech practice can be a great way to maintain the progress made in speech sessions. It is important to keep the progress made with your SLP when any individual, child or adult, achieves a goal. This means that repetition can make this new skill “stick.”
Regression can occur if there is more than one week between sessions that have no practice. Regular practice at home can help prevent this from happening and will keep you both motivated by your hard work and progress!
Speech Practice Builds Skills
An SLP creates a customized treatment plan for each client based on their communication needs, strengths, and weaknesses. These plans contain goals that follow a specific structure.
There are short-term goals that clients should achieve within a period of about 3-6 months. A number of these short-term goals can be regrouped to form a long-term goal that a client must reach before being discharged from speech therapy.
Skill Transference is made easier by practice
Children can perform differently in structured therapy environments than they do at home.
Children may find it easier to learn certain skills in speech therapy with a trained speech pathology Sydney. Speech therapy cannot be exactly as the unstructured non-therapy environment.
Parents and caregivers can practice these skills at home, track their child’s progress, communicate with their SLPs, and give feedback. This will make the SLP’s instruction even more valuable. As a result, they may modify the treatment plan, offer additional exercises at home, or give tips to help increase the transferability of skills to the home.
Your SLP wants the best for your child, and they will provide valuable feedback to help ensure your child’s success. A good SLP will give feedback on how clients are doing in their home environments to measure progress.
Honest feedback can help determine the length of treatment
Honest feedback on how a client is doing can impact the length of treatment.
Your child may be dismissed if their SLP doesn’t know about the difficulties in transferring skills to the home environment. Your child has made a significant investment in their success, including time, money, and commitment.
Tips for Prioritizing Weekly Practice
Our lives are so full these days, with work, school, and our personal lives. All practice is good practice, but it’s important that you find the best practice for your family and your child’s learning style. Your ability to dedicate time to practice will determine which home practice is best for you.
These strategies can help you prioritize your weekly practice.
- In your planner or calendar, write down the days that you have set aside for practice
- For a reminder, set an alarm on your smartphone
- You can practice in small chunks – 5-10 minutes here
- You and your child can practice in a quiet, peaceful time so that you both can be focused.
- Give motivational rewards to little ones after they have completed practice