Many parents are concerned with their child’s milestones, from crawling, walking to finally talking. However, some questions come to mind especially when their child does not show these milestones at a specific time, especially in the area of communication. Perhaps you’re in this situation, and you’re wondering how to help a child with speech delay.
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How to treat speech delay: My personal experience
Having experience treating children with communicative disorders, a lot of parents have asked me if there is a “cure” for speech delay. The truth is, speech delay isn’t a disease that can magically disappear, but there are steps we can take to improve a child’s communicative skills.
These include speech therapy, and some strategies you can do at home on how to improve a child’s delayed speech.
Can speech delay cause social delay?
Another question that parents ask is if speech delay causes social delay. Imperatively, if a child cannot express themselves fully in words or sentences, it is likely that their opportunities to socialize can be impeded. However, this does not mean that they are socially delayed from the very beginning. It’s just that the lack of opportunities to communicate with others will hinder them from having that exposure in age-appropriate socialization.
In this post, I will be discussing some things you can start on as a parent if you notice speech delay in your child.
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How to help a child with a speech delay: Strategies that work
Provide obstacles that will be opportunities for them to communicate
One of the most powerful things you can start for a child with a speech delay is providing “obstacles” for them to engage in communication.
You must be able to find ways that your child will be motivated to speak or to extend their words and sentences.
For example, if there is a favorite toy or food, you can place them in an area where it’s visible yet out of reach, and prompt them to say “Give me”. When they have hygiene needs, you can also prompt them to say “Pee” or “Wash hands” before the activity. This will help your child understand that there are specific words for things and they can use them to communicate.
Work with your child using resources at home
Sometimes, day-to-day experiences may not be enough to provide a lot of opportunities to work on your child’s speech. This is where extra resources come in, to help your child in the mastery of speech skills.
In my resource, “Speech Delay Workbook for Kids”, you can target different areas of prompting to help your child talk more, including:
- Phrases for assistance
- Greetings
- Subject + Verb
- Subject + Verb + Object
- “I” statements (Subject + Verb + Object) and more
This workbook will provide you prompts that you can work on with your child to help them understand functional phrases and sentences to communicate with others. To get your own, just to go Amazon.
Give encouragements
Another piece of the puzzle of helping your child with speech delay is to give encouragements when they attempt to speak. One of the ways on how to improve a child with delayed speech is to say “good try” especially when they tried to extend a certain phrase (Saying “give + me” instead of just “give”).
Praising them for their attempts is just as important as praising them for their accomplishments. This provides motivation from people that matter to them the most.
Opportunities to play and bond with peers
Another way to help with speech delay is to present opportunities for children to socialize. Play is one of the best strategies you can try — setting up play dates or going to play groups will help your child be exposed to communicating with others, helping them to see and mimic how others interact.
I hope these strategies can help you out! As always, don’t forget to check out my resource available on Amazon, “Speech Delay Workbook for Kids”.
Read more:
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