Guest Post! We’re always looking for clever new ways to keep education—especially speech education—fresh and fun at home. So when we stumbled across Time 4 Speech’s brand new subscription-based “speech activities in a box” service, we called right away to get the scoop. Amber Fisher describes how she got started.
Perhaps you’ve already determined that you’d like to have your child seen by a speech pathologist and have had some of your initial questions answered. Many times your child’s speech therapy services can be delivered in the comfort and convenience of your own home. Especially for younger children (i.e. up to age 5), being “on their own turf” can really help foster rapport between your child and the clinician and make your child feel maximally comfortable as he or she works on something that may be somewhat challenging. This brief post is dedicated to providing parents with a few tips for maximizing the effectiveness of speech therapy home visits. The better prepared and knowledgeable you can be as you start the process of your home-based speech therapy, the more likely it is that your child will achieve his or her speech or language learning goals.
With the body awash in insulin to metabolize all that holiday sugar and (if you’re like me) a mildly shocking reading from the scale, the New Year is a time to set new goals—resolutions, we like to say—to make us especially steadfast. While most New Year’s resolutions tend to involve personal disciplines like not eating so much barbecue or to get more exercise, as parents it is important to consider how our resolutions could positively influence our child’s education. Here are four easy-to-implement resolutions to either get your child’s therapy back on track or to further bolster their progress with a little speech therapy at home.
In a recent blog post, “I Think my Child Needs Speech Therapy – Now What?”, I outlined the process of securing speech and language therapy services for your child. But let’s say your child has just begun or has been in therapy for some time? What then? Do you find yourself wondering, “how should I be helping my child with speech therapy?” This post is dedicated to providing tips for parents on how to maximize the services they are already receiving. Whether your child is receiving school-based or private therapy, there are many things a parent can do to empower themselves and ultimately, to make therapy more efficient.
[Photo: skyseeker, CC]
Art Therapy as Speech Therapy. Image source: arttherapywithoutborders.wordpress.com
Sometimes with younger kids, speech therapy doesn’t need to look like a traditional speech therapy classroom regimen. Instead, speech therapy can take on a more creative approach using Art. Yes — Art can be a useful tool to enhance a child’s speech and language development. Whether or not you have a child who needs help with verbal expression or auditory comprehension, there are excellent art-based activities that your child can do to engage all of his senses. And the best part — art therapy can be done at home! I know for some, even the phrase “art project” evokes a fear of mess and chaos! But, for a child in speech therapy, an art experience may be just what he needs to explore his creative side and improve his verbal and comprehension skills at the same time.
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