# Advice from those whose children have had speech therapy?



## roxie78

My son has been on the waiting list for speech therapy since January.

I got a phone call yesterday to say that he is still on the waiting list but to invite me & my husband to a group session for the parents only. :nope:
Has anyone been to one of these sessions? Can't see how it would be much good to be honest!?

Also for those that have had speech therapy, can you recommend any activities etc I could do with my son in the meantime to help him?

He can link 3 or 4 words now but mostly says 2 words at a time.:flower:


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## Peanut78

Hi there, 

My son is in speech therapy, but we live outside the UK, so are part of a privatised system. Sorry you have to wait :nope:

Probably the "group parents" session is exactly to give you an idea of what activities you could be doing with your son. All our speech therapy sessions, although aimed at my son are essentially "homework" for me in terms of what I should be doing with him on a daily basis... :shrug:

Hope you find it useful :hugs:


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## Midnight_Fairy

Hi,

I found it useful as I found out what they were doing/how the kids learn etc. It was informative x:thumbup:


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## sun

Hi - I'm in Canada so things may be different here, but my son has been in speech therapy for 4-5 months. I am in a group session with parents of children with speech delays and I am finding it really helpful - almost more than the 1x/week therapy. The course is teaching us how to encourage speech on a daily basis while which I find so helpful, as I spend most of the time with him. It also taught me all the ways he IS communicating so I can encourage that as well. Plus I get to meet and discuss with the other parents which is really great. So for me the sessions are very useful.


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## Midnight_Fairy

I hope you find it helps xx go for it x


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## Caezzybe

I think that anything which gives you something to work with for your LO is going to be useful, as whatever your speech therapist gives you to do with your child there will be done at home by you as well, it's the same with most therapies.

I'm on the waiting list for an assessment and it seems to be taking forever (now due next week after an unfortunate double booking on their part on Friday resulting in a no-show), but the duty speech therapist at the drop in session I went to months ago did give me a couple of things to do in the meantime.


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## Noel

I'm a pediatric speech language pathologist and work with young children with language delays. How old is your child? There are lots of things you can do throughout the day to help increase your child's speech and language development. 
1) Self-talk: verbalize what you are seeing, doing, hearing, feeling. This is great during play with your child. For ex. "I'm pushing the car up."
2) Parallel-talk: verbalize what your child is doing. This allows the child to develop associations between word and actions/objects. "You made a tall tower!"
3) expansions: verbal responses that repeat the child's utterance while adding something new. For ex. If your child says, "baby sleep." You can add, "yes, the baby is sleeping."
4) Modify the environment: change your house to allow the opportunity for your child to request help, indicate toys/food/ etc they want, items they need. For ex., put toys on a high shelf, give them yogurt without a spoon so they need to request it.
5) Use visuals: children grasp concepts, vocabulary, and spoken language better when they are able to see the information as well as hear it. Google "boardmaker icons" and you can find lots of great visuals.

You can also start to work on expanding utterances with games with carrier sentences, sentences where only the last word changes. for ex. play a mystery box game, pulling items out of a covered box and saying, "I found a ___". You can also use "I have", "I want", "I see", "I hear", etc. Using visual or movement cues with each word can also help a child. For ex. place a few blocks out and give the child a drum stick and have them tap out each word with you.

Sorry this is so long but I hope this helps!


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## huggybear

We too are in speech therapy, I was referred by my HV when LO was 2yrs 4 months and was told there was a 10 week waiting list just for the assessment. We have been lucky as a cancellation came up and was seen for our assessment, my LO can say probably say 30 words but chooses not to use them.  I was advised by the ST to just chat chat chat all day (which I do anyway) and once LO is interested and points to something to just use one word of what he is pointing to ie Bus!! I was kinda doing this before but was then going off on, oh big red bus, look its going up the road etc. This was a big no no. Also I was questioning LO on things, like "Oh whats that" apparently this too is a no no Also I was advised to give LO choices to encourage him to say the word, this isnt working as if I offer him either an apple or banana he wants both and will have meltdown over it, its the same if I try and prompt him to actually ask for an item, ie juice, if he points and I try and get him to say it, he will kick off big time. I have on Wed a workshop of how best to encourage speech with LO then another appointment with the SP and then it will be evaluated on how many lessions etc LO will actually need with ST.. sorry have gone on too long but hope this helps. x


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## JASMAK

My daughter waited for almost a year. I would DEFINITELY go to the parent one! I did MANY parent only stuff and learned tonnes on how to help my child!! And, at the end of the day, that is the goal!


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## Loui1001

I'm an SLT and we often run parent courses, the idea behind it is that different techniques can be introduced, discussed in detail and then carried out by parents in everyday activities at home. They are fantastic for showing how every activity can be made into a 'language' activity - the techniques covered are really useful and practical.

HTH X


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## deafgal

well, for deaf toddler like me, they don't really do speech drills,as toddlers don't natually speak well. they just encourage them to speak in general rather it is pronounced correctly or not. it helps with learning the skill to speak (kinda like how babies experiments with voices and toddler experiment blending those sounds to make a word) and get them to listen closely with whatever hearing tool they have. the corrections come later when they are little older.


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## AP

I'd totally go to the group sessions, the days i went with Alex were less beneficial and she was upset - and learnt nothing. I always came home with some understanding and something to take home with me.


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