How to Help

As parents, we want to provide our children with fun and engaging toys, but sometimes we just don’t know which toys to choose. This is a great article with excellent tips for choosing toys to support communication development. There is also a link in the article to some of

Social-emotional development is important because it helps children to build healthy relationships, manage their emotions, and feel empathy. Social-emotional development also supports communication because it helps children listen and follow directions, as well as communicate their needs and emotions. This poster by Pathway 2 Success shares some

A series of handouts from the American Speech-Language Hearing Association that outline typical communication development from birth to 5 years old and provide suggestions on how to support communication development at each stage.

https://identifythesigns.org/communicating-with-baby-toolkit/

This infographic provides 10 strategies that parents and caregivers can use at home to maximize communication and embed intervention into daily routines with their child who has apraxia of speech.

Apraxia Strategies Parents Can Use at Home

This offers six practical and easy tips to help parents emphasize speech sounds in order to improve articulation skills.

Articulation-Making-Speech-Sounds-more-obvious-to-your-Child

Did you know that children typically master pronunciation of individual consonant sounds in the middle of words last? The reason is simple - it’s complicated! Word-medial consonants are surrounded by other speech sounds, being influenced by both those that precede and proceed them. Watch this video

This site provides very practical Monday-Sunday theme-based calendars with specific activities to encourage communication in preschoolers.  Many tips are also listed.

https://connectability.ca/2010/09/28/communicating-for-fun-calendars/ 

This link provides handouts which include 10 communication tips for various developmental levels (children who communicate without words, children who have just started talking, and children who talk in sentences).
http://www.hanen.org/Helpful-Info/Parent-Tips.aspx

This article provides in-depth suggestions for how to encourage language growth through reading picture books with your child. 
Dialogic Reading

This Super Duper Handy Handout explains how reading helps children develop their speech sounds.  It also provides a list of books for particular speech sounds.

https://www.superduperinc.com/handouts/pdf/74_childrensbooks.pdf

This video explains why speaking to your child face to face and on their level is important for developing speech and language skills.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lyn3XW40Kb1tIvWhngLzS8Vy7mnZ9Xnu/view?usp=sharing

This visual guide shows hand gestures and corresponding mouth postures that can be used to cue children to produce specific vowels during speech, as well as illustrate the difference between words like “pick” and “peek,” “net” and “nut,” and “eye” and “A.”

Sometimes preschoolers’ ears need a little help to identify the right sounds in words, particularly when we are trying to correct pronunciation. Gestures are an excellent supplement to help children hear the difference between words like “sit” and “sick,” “big” and “pig,” and “E” and “eat.”

Use these tips to help improve how your child produces sounds, plus a handy list of books for specific sounds.

How Parents Can Help Their Children with Articulation

When teaching a new skill we often start at the beginning. This can be challenging for children who are struggling to master a skill. One way of learning a new task while giving your child a sense of achievement is to use the backward chaining technique.

Need a visual way to highlight the difference between how your child says a word and the “correct” way to say it (and make progress towards the latter)? Minimal pairs and speech sound hand gestures are a winning combination! Watch this video to find out what

This article, published by the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, provides simple suggestions for optimizing communication with kids with developmental language disorders. 

Shareable Strategies for Working With Preschool Children With DLD

View this 3-minute video to discover how to build on what your child says by adding one or two words to your child’s spontaneous speech.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jIAKeGegDSe09GfkXFgYIYXl0oxBRrjG/view?usp=sharing

Watch this 5-minute video to learn how to expand language and improve communication skills by offering your child choices throughout the day.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o4_tqhAEOaozICxEXp3yWfnL8J_lDq-b/view?usp=sharing

This provides a word list, daily routines, activities, games and toys, songs, books, and conversational phrases for each speech sound.​

Speech Sounds Guide-Cochlear

This video demonstrates the speech sound hand gestures shown in the handout linked here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1trnjhalYpox3LJ5Nz6ZSSC4BDKax_E4J/view?usp=sharing

This handout outlines five simple strategies that can be used in the home to support language development.

Supporting Language Development at Home

This video explains why it is important for speech and language development to take turns with your child when talking and playing with them.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KEqGsSP21tDk9AVAGW1PlU41QfFDYEQS/view?usp=sharing

Here’s a comprehensive resource to aid in providing a language-rich environment with conversations, asking questions, expanding on language, enriching vocabulary, reading, etc.

Talk, Read, & Sing Together Everyday

Children with communication disorders can be successful in following directions and answering questions, but they often need more time to process what we say to them. Frequent repetitions and pressure for a response can interrupt processing and overwhelm a child. Give your child at least 3-5

This article, published by the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, provides a list of some language skills that preschool-aged children should be able to demonstrate. It also provides suggestions for supporting growth in these areas. 

https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/34/

Repeating what others say, also known as echolalia, is just one of the many ways that children acquire language. The question is what differentiates typical echolalia from echolalia that is part of a broader delay or disorder? This article defines both types of echolalia while also