how can i teach speech therapy at home?

Question

my son is three nd half years old. he's diagnosed with porencephalic cyst with failure to thrive. he does nt talk. can anybody plz tell me how can i give speech therapy at home. thou i'm going for the therapy i'm eager to teach him more so that he can understand much better. i'm unable to spend for videos or dvd's as our income is very low. can any therapist help me

Answer 1

First of all, has your son be evaluated by a speech pathologist? If not, you have several options (at least in NY). 1) you can call your doctor and ask for a referral to a therapist who takes your insurance. The down side is that therapy funded by insurance usually has to be done in an office setting, not in your home. 2) your next option is to contact your school district and ask for an evaluation. In NY, the school district will pay for a comprehensive speech evaluation. The evaluation is also usually done in a therapy setting, not in the home. The evaluation process also usually includes a psychological evaluation. Once the evals are completed, you will have a meeting with the evaluators AND the school district to determine if therapy is warranted. If it is, you can ask to have the therapy provided in your home. Any therapy approved by a school district is paid by the district, so your income should not be a factor. After reading your other questions, i just wanted to add that a speech pathologist can also help with your son's feeding issues. And, if he's not walking, the evaluation process can (and should) include a physical therapy and occupational therapy evaluation.

If your son is found to have needs in all the above areas, it may be best to send him to a preschool that can accomodate all of his therapies each day in the school. You can look for "center-based preschool programs". These schools are great in that all the therapists can take a team approach when it comes to working with your son. They also (at least the ones i have been affiliated with) encourage parental participation. either through phone calls, notebooks passed back and forth, or the parent coming in to observe or participate in therapy.

When i do home based therapy, i encourage the parents to watch/participate in order to carryover the techniques i have introduced into every day life. Sometimes, the child will not work well when the parents are watching. In that case, i like to work with the child by ourselves, and take the last 5 minutes or so to review all the work we have done for the session with the parents in order to check carryover. I am also big on sending home homework.....worksheets, specific tasks, etc.

It's difficult to give you some specific ideas about what to do now. If he is having trouble understanding your directions (can he follow a 2-3 step direction? such as, "give me your shoe, then touch your nose, then give mommy a hug?")? If so, practice 1 step directions. SHow him what you want done. You can move up to 2 ten 3 steps as he gets better. If he understands, and is not speaking (does he use any words? phrases?), you can try to introduce some simple signs to provide him a way to communicate his wants/needs. THere are lots of websites that will teach you sign language. I would stick to simple signs such as "more", "eat", "toilet", etc. I he is having trouble talking because he cannot pronounce his letters, i would wait until the therapist starts working with him b/c we use some specific techniques that are better when individually selected to meet to specific needs of the child at hand.

The American Speech and Hearing Association has a website, and they can probably help you find a therapist who is in your area. Anyone who is a member has also received a master's degree and served a 9 month "probationary" period after graduating where we are supervised by another therapist. The website is www.ahsa.org

good luck

Answer 2

Has he been assessed by a speech/language pathologist? You can have him assessed for FREE by your local school district, which can then provide your son services. With help from the school district, your son will be in regular contact with a speech therapist, and they can give you all kinds of information and tools to use at home. I am glad that you are so interested to help... that is the biggest part of speech therapy. Parents will provide the majority of the "therapy" because of the massive amounts of time that you have the opportunity to spend with your child.

Answer 3

If you are already going to therapy with him then discuss with the speach therapist what you can be doing at home. Don't work him too hard, it takes time and you need to keep it fun or else he won't be interested. The therapist should have given you exercises for at home. Stick with them. I know you just want to help your son but take it in baby steps. Good luck

Answer 4

Ask the speech therapist for at home work papers. He/she should abe able to give you instructions on what and how to work with him. Also if he is going into kindergarden soon, contact the school, they should have speech teachers there as well.