Whether you are located in Atlanta like us, or anywhere in the world, incorporating speech therapy into your child’s daily life is extremely essential! There are so many ways you can get creative and have fun with this. We have compiled multiple techniques that will help you effectively conduct speech therapy with your children! Don’t forget to be patient & consistent (and of course enjoy the process)! The following list has speech therapy techniques you can use in specific scenarios throughout the day:
I. Kitchen (Cooking & Baking) Speech Building Activities
- Sequence: Talk about the order of instructions (first, next, last). This will improve your child’s logical ordering skills.
- Following a Recipe: Consider printing out some picture-recipes for visual stimulation. Try using easy recipes such as PB&J or grilled cheese.
- Positional Words: Target specific words such as IN or UNDER. Describe the movement of the ingredients. Ex: “The chocolate chips go IN the bowl”.
- Describing Flavors & Textures: Use words such as sweet, salty, spicy, bland, crunchy, soft, warm, cold, hot, etc.
II. Bath Time Speech Building Activities
- Sing songs & rhymes: Start singing & repeating a song or rhyme! Once your child begins to learn the song, PAUSE (15-20 seconds), and give them a chance to participate. Example: “Row, Row, Row your ______”. Your child may begin to communicate verbally or physically!
- Narrate your Child’s play: Label all of the objects in the bath (water, soap, shampoo, toy, sponge, bubbles, various body parts, etc. ALSO use action words to describe their play (cleaning, swimming, washing, playing, etc.)
- Positional Words: Use bath toys to describe movement! Use words such as on top, under, behind, over, etc.
- Bathtub Books: Consider purchasing bathtub safe books! Read to your child or have them read to you. This will keep your kids entertained and improve their speech & language skills!
III. Family Meal Time Speech Building Activities
- Eating a meal together once a day as a family can improve your child’s speech development.
- Requests: Begin repeating phrases such as “pass the bowl”, “please”, “thank you”, etc. This will help your children develop stronger social skills, manners, and patience.
- Labeling: Begin to label objects at the dinner table (utensils, salt shaker, napkin, plate, bowl, cup, etc.)
- Recall the day’s events: Ask your children what they did during the day. When they begin to talk about these events, EXPAND upon these events. Ex: If they say “today I played with my toy car”, you should say “yes you played with your RED car”.
12 Tips and Activities for Speech Therapy in Daily Life
