Did you know that you are able to sneak Speech Language Therapy into fun time at home. My favourite, and some of the easiest advice to follow for families, is using everyday routines to sneak in speech and language therapy at home:
1. Getting dressed: a simple routine that each and every child has to undergo each day that can be used for infants all the way up to 6-7 year olds. You can teach the vocabulary around: clothing, verbs associated with dressing, use descriptions to describe the clothing (e.g. blue pants, shirt with the red stripes etc.) and encourage requesting of the items a child will want to wear e.g. do you want the red or green socks?
2. Bath time: another daily routine that has many opportunities to encourage verbs, naming of body parts and accessories needed for bathing (soap, sponges, cloths etc). Along the language used, parents can encourage oral-motor exercises and oral-motor muscle and lung development such as blowing soap bubbles and blowing air bubbles with straws.
3. Meal times: talk about the items of food, the shapes, colours and consistencies (e.g. crunchy, soft, gooey etc).
4. Drive-time: a fantastic time to practice and name items we see whilst driving; naming colours of cars, discussing noises we hear, playing ‘I spy’, learning LEFT and RIGHT, counting (cars, houses, robot changes). The list is endless. Not to mention the opportunity to play Nursery Rhymes which are fundamental to early-phonics skills.
5. Going shopping: again an activity that provides endless opportunities to learn new vocabulary, work on memory (e.g. give your child 2-4 items you need from your shopping list and see if they can remember them, collect them and remember the items once you are home and packing them away), learning how to give money and receive change, counting money, learning about where food comes from (e.g. fruit from farms, milk from cows etc).
Language and learning is all around us; we just need to make this accessible to our children to ensure their language, speech, brain and muscles are stimulated!
