How do you find the time to practice speech therapy at home? After all, you’re a busy mom who’s just trying to keep the house together every day.

But you also want your child to improve their speech.

Unfortunately, just working on speech goals with your Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) isn’t going to improve your child’s speech quickly. So how do you incorporate speech therapy at home without adding more stuff to your day?

That was exactly my dilema too.

When we were in the thick of speech therapy, I was a mom of two kids with hearing loss who were 2 years old and younger. I had two sets of speech goals to work on weekly with each child.  I didn’t know how I was going to pull it off to practice speech goals throughout the week with both children.

It was really overwhelming for me to try to find a set time to practice with each child. I always had the best intentions to set aside specific “therapy” time each day, but then life would happen and before I knew it nap time was here.

So I learned to adapt our speech therapy at home to what we were already doing with our kids. Our kids were able to practice and improve in speech, yet I didn’t have to take extra time out of our busy day.

I want to help you do this too! Read the blog post to learn my 3 proven speech goal strategies that I use with my own family. You can start today to incorporate speech therapy at home into your daily routine with kids. 

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SET EXPECTATIONS to PRACTICE SPEECH THERAPY GOALS AT HOME

What is a reasonable expectation for practicing speech therapy goals at home? It depends on the child.

Generally, about 10-15 minutes at a time works the best. Kids tend to have a shorter attention span and you want to work on speech goals with them while they are engaged. Once they disengage or get tired of the practice, it’s hard to get them hooked back in.

Kids respond well to practicing therapy goals during short, but frequent increments throughout the day. So 10-15 minutes at a time is a great place to start to practice speech therapy with kids.

While we are working on setting expectations for speech therapy practice, remember that language acquisition is long- term work. Your child won’t improve faster the more that you make them do it. You have to strike a balance of getting good, focused practice in, and then also give them a break. If you are consistent, then over time you will see that your child’s speech will improve.

DON’T PRACTICE EVERY SPEECH GOAl every day

On average kids with hearing loss see an SLP one time a week. At the end of the weekly session the SLP will give you a list of 3-5 speech goals to practice throughout the rest of the week.

However, you don’t have to try to cram all of the speech goals practice into every single day. It’s not possible, and you will end up stressing out both you and your child, which is not the goal.

Instead, think about going deeper in practice rather than wider. Pick 1-2 speech therapy activities per day, and really do a lot of focused work on those. 

The next day, pick 1-2 different speech goals and practice those all day. Your child will stay more engaged when you change the speech goals each day, rather than practicing the same goal for 6 straight days.

There is also a common phrase used by SLP’s that says to let the language “marinate”. This means that after speech practice, the child needs time away from the speech goal to fully absorb what you were working on. Alternating days that you work on certain speech goals helps your child practice, and then let it sit and absorb what they just learned.

INCORPORATE SPEECH GOALS INTO THE DAY

Here is where it gets fun!

You don’t have to set up a specific time or place just to practice speech goals. You can, and should, incorporate the speech goals in what you are already doing that day!

For example, right now we are working on the speech goal of “open” with my 4 year old. So on the day that I want to practice that speech goal, I just highlight the word and ask him to repeat the word “open” every time it comes up in our normal day.

When we OPEN the door, OPEN the fridge door, OPEN a container, or OPEN a top those are all times that we practice saying and signing the word “open” without setting up a specific practice time to work on this.

Any reglular- life situation can be used to practice speech goals. Here are some more ideas of ways that you can incorporate speech practice into your day:

1. In the grocery store- practice food words, practice “give”, practice “push” (the cart)
2. Playing in the yard- practice go, swing, play, ball, scoop, put in, put on
3. Eating dinner- practice eat, practice more food words, practice fork and spoon, practice cup and drink
4. Driving in the car- practice look, I see, play I spy, practice colors, practice vehicles names and sounds, practice singing familiar songs

Another resource with great ideas on different ways to practice speech goals is the ASHA website. I love that this website breaks speech goals down into age groups of kids, and provides examples of incorporating speech goals into your day based on your kid’s age.

Using these 3 strategies is how I was able to effectively incorporate speech goals for two kids into our busy day with a toddler and a preschooler. Over time my kids made great strides with this way of learning. I know that if you stay consistent with the practice, your kids will also improve their language use!

Let me know in the comments what speech goal are you working on this week!

Are you looking for practice in speech and ASL? Read my blog post on 3 practical ways to include ASL into your day