Helping Your Child with Articulation at Home

A new school year is here! Your child is continuing or just beginning speech- language therapy for sounds that they are having difficulty saying. Here are a few tips to encourage your child to speak more clearly at home.

Tips to Improve Speech Clarity

• If you understand only part of what your child is saying, request more information. “Wow! It sounds like you and Tommy had fun at recess. You and Tommy played on what?”
• Request that your child repeat what they said. You may say, “I didn’t quite hear you, can you tell me again?” Make attempts to use nonverbal communication, such as gestures, emotion, and eye-gaze when talking with your child.
• Use environmental cues when needed by asking your child to show you what they are talking about?”
• Visual supports such as pictures and objects may be very helpful when trying to  understand your child.
• Be careful not to correct your child’s speech all the time as they may feel self-conscious about how much their errors are corrected and make them more reluctant to talk. Designate a special practice time (10-15 minutes) each day that you will be working on and listening for their “good sounds”.
• Use positive comments and descriptive language. “Nice try. I didn’t see your tongue tip between your teeth when you said ‘th’. Try saying ‘th’ with your tongue between your teeth. Great job!”
• Modeling the misarticulated sound to your child but not explicitly drawing attention to it is helpful because hearing the correct production will help your child accurately produce the sound. For example, if your child said “dod” for “dog” you can say, “oh dog” and emphasize the “g” without pointing out your child’s error. Then continue with the conversation.

Increasing your child’s confidence when talking is very important, so if questions arise about how your child is progressing, or if you have additional concerns about your child’s speech development, call Mosaic at 388-4988 to schedule an appointment with a speech-language pathologist.