The immediate step after identifying the delay in speech / language development or hearing impairment in most cases is a series of speech therapy or hearing therapy sessions aimed at your childs speech and language development. Here are some tips or steps that can help you in achieving the ultimate goal - tapping your childs full potential.
1) Be positive and have faith in the therapists
Yes, especially in the first few days when there may not be a visible change in your child/ when the child is in the stage of building rapport/ when you feel the therapist is just 'playing' with the child than actually doing 'therapy'. Initial few days in most therapies focus on building rapport with the child as it is important to get the child seated and listen to the therapist before one can actually start with any activities. Language development occurs in a step by step process as in a normal child and slowly progresses from meaningful sounds to one word to phrases to sentences. Hence be patient, it may take time but it will be worth the wait..!!
2)Keep a note of changes in your child
Be sensitive to even minor changes in your child. This is something you will build on during therapy.
It could be the child being more attentive towards sound/ speech, a head turn/ a smile towards sound or any speech or non speech sign from the child that has actually come up as a result of therapy. This helps you to be positive about the outcomes of therapy. Also, report any physical/ behavioural concerns to your therapist as sometimes you can get help from other professionals which your therapist can guide you with.
3)Building a language rich environment
In simple words make use of every opportunity to teach something to the child. Convert daily activities to platform for speech and language learning for example, bathing, eating, praying, cooking, washing; give instructions, narrate things as you do,ask questions, introduce new sounds. This kind of stimulation does benefit the child's development in long run. Use clear speech with a lot of 'sing song ' voice to grab your child's attention. Therapy should not always be a one to one room based activity. Make it more natural and enjoyable for your child. Make use of easily available materials to teach the child. Your therapist can give you ideas on this.
4) Try to involve other family members.
Involve other members of the family and ask them to treat the kid as any other normal child. Instruct them about the using natural voice and giving the child opportunity to speak and learn as it is for childs own benefit and not to sympathise and make everything easily available for the child. Stress on the need to create situations where child can use and develop language.
5)Try not to take a break from therapy and utilise all the resources available.
Try to keep the learning and therapy continuous for at least 2-3 years. This does not mean to pressurise the child, but focus on keeping the learning continuous. Make use of every available resource in the clinic/ therapist for child's training example home training materials available in clinic, online resources, different ideas/ possible materials to teach the same activity.
6) Work with the therapist
Working on the same goals as your therapist would ease the learning in child and help in easy generalisation as well. Do not hurry on teaching and let your child learn at his/her natural pace. For eg if the therapist is working on the concept of vegetables, you can ease the learning by teaching the same items at home, include more items, a natural learning activity while cooking/ take him to a market and do some vegetable shopping. This would help your child learn better and therapist can move on to the next concept
Wishing you all a happy teaching and learning...!!!...
1) Be positive and have faith in the therapists
Yes, especially in the first few days when there may not be a visible change in your child/ when the child is in the stage of building rapport/ when you feel the therapist is just 'playing' with the child than actually doing 'therapy'. Initial few days in most therapies focus on building rapport with the child as it is important to get the child seated and listen to the therapist before one can actually start with any activities. Language development occurs in a step by step process as in a normal child and slowly progresses from meaningful sounds to one word to phrases to sentences. Hence be patient, it may take time but it will be worth the wait..!!
2)Keep a note of changes in your child
Be sensitive to even minor changes in your child. This is something you will build on during therapy.
It could be the child being more attentive towards sound/ speech, a head turn/ a smile towards sound or any speech or non speech sign from the child that has actually come up as a result of therapy. This helps you to be positive about the outcomes of therapy. Also, report any physical/ behavioural concerns to your therapist as sometimes you can get help from other professionals which your therapist can guide you with.
3)Building a language rich environment
In simple words make use of every opportunity to teach something to the child. Convert daily activities to platform for speech and language learning for example, bathing, eating, praying, cooking, washing; give instructions, narrate things as you do,ask questions, introduce new sounds. This kind of stimulation does benefit the child's development in long run. Use clear speech with a lot of 'sing song ' voice to grab your child's attention. Therapy should not always be a one to one room based activity. Make it more natural and enjoyable for your child. Make use of easily available materials to teach the child. Your therapist can give you ideas on this.
4) Try to involve other family members.
Involve other members of the family and ask them to treat the kid as any other normal child. Instruct them about the using natural voice and giving the child opportunity to speak and learn as it is for childs own benefit and not to sympathise and make everything easily available for the child. Stress on the need to create situations where child can use and develop language.
5)Try not to take a break from therapy and utilise all the resources available.
Try to keep the learning and therapy continuous for at least 2-3 years. This does not mean to pressurise the child, but focus on keeping the learning continuous. Make use of every available resource in the clinic/ therapist for child's training example home training materials available in clinic, online resources, different ideas/ possible materials to teach the same activity.
6) Work with the therapist
Working on the same goals as your therapist would ease the learning in child and help in easy generalisation as well. Do not hurry on teaching and let your child learn at his/her natural pace. For eg if the therapist is working on the concept of vegetables, you can ease the learning by teaching the same items at home, include more items, a natural learning activity while cooking/ take him to a market and do some vegetable shopping. This would help your child learn better and therapist can move on to the next concept
Wishing you all a happy teaching and learning...!!!...
