Hello!

My 2 almost 3 yr old is needing speech therapy I am currently on the waiting list but won’t be seen for a min of 3 months, does anyone have any tips to help him in the meantime? He gets so frustrated :(


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  • Model lots of language to him. Narrate your entire day. Consider teaching him key word sign for a few needs (eg want, more, toilet, food, drink)


  • I uploaded a phot with excellent tips/strategies


  • My kids were suggested to have speech therapy at age 2 and 3. I went along with it for some months but then pulled them out as I found it nonsense. Some kids need a bit more time for their speech to develop, no need to put them in speech therapy or to force them in any way.
    Just read a lot and chat with them and you could ask them to look to your mouth when you speak. Make sure you articulate very well and use your mimic and lips clearly when speaking.
    My youngest is 6yrs old and seriously delayed because of low tone, in her case speech therapy is appropriate and she’s probably need it for many years to come.


  • It really depends why he needs it. At that age it could just be he doesn’t want to talk yet


  • Just spend lots of time reading and talking with him. Ask him to say things as often as possible. Ensure you enunciate your words clearly. It all helps


  • We panic so much over their speech! I’d panic over my second child not speaking as clear words, intelligible speech as her sister. Now at aged six she talks fine. My goodness we want Grammy award winning speeches by aged four!
    Relax, enjoy books together. Repeat words back. Encourage ‘use your words’ any attempt is great.
    Have conversations requiring more than yes or no answers, like what do you think?
    Tell me about your day?


  • First, I ask why does he need speech therapy?
    Does he speak at all?
    Is he tongue tied?
    Does he have hearing impairment?
    Does he have difficulty pronouncing certain words/sounds?
    There are exercises to stretch the tongue if it is too tight. Have him poke tongues in front of a mirror. Sit with him in front of a mirror and have him repeat the difficult words/sounds. Make up fun little rhymes with these difficult words/sounds.


  • My youngest son went to speech therapy when he was three all the way till starting school. The focus was on sounding out words and letters n watching how the mouth n tongue move for each word or letter. Get a mirror and a phonetics chart with pictures of this and practice. In time u will c results.


  • Have you checked there are no other problems. Get a book with pictures and point to them, say what it is and get him to repeat.


  • all I can go by is after my first and more operations to give me hearing and my Grandson also has some hearing loss. What I would and still do is place a hand on either side of their face as well get down lower and make sure they looked at me and watched my lips as I spoke and than make them repeat back was I was saying.
    I also spent having them watch my mouth when I talk so they can see how you move your lips and such.
    Also when I detected a letter of word they had said I would go through the above things and over pronounce the letters and sounds. As well read lots of books and your little to repeat it after you.
    Back in that time Mum would come up to school and she was my speech therapy and as I said she did alot at home
    Also if you can not hear properly not only does the parent/teacher get frustrated so does your son. He also will be very frustrated will not hearing properly so may get angry and can talk loud or cases talk to low you can not him. They learn to amuse them selves. Which some people think they are naughty but they also are very very frustrated.
    One of the things Mum did was buy me a tounge twister book and we would do that book every day and it was a little golden which I still have. If you know tounge twisters start teaching your Son them now same as nursery rhymes.


  • I notice a lot of mums speak over their children and finish their sentences for them (completely unintentionally). Only because the Mum knows the child so well…she knows exactly what they want. But that doesn’t help the child’s speech development. I found that using clear words for things and repeating things over and over helps. Such as if I pick up an apple to eat, I would say slowly and clearly “this is an apple, the apple is red. Mummy is eating the apple.” With a lot of emphasis on the word apple. Also, if the little one isn’t too frustrated…I would delay in giving them something unless they initially said “TA” to ask for something. Then “MORE”, then using the word for the item. All the best. Its still early, so plenty of time to sort out.


  • Start out working on individual sounds. There are some great phonetics resources available. My daughter also had to have speech therapy at 3. Websites with teaching resources would be a good place to start. I feel your pain. It will get easier. If you are offered the opportunity to work with a student I’d give it a go. They sometimes have some great new ideas (my daughter isn’t a sit and listen learner, she needs activities to learn) and this also makes sure that there are properly educated new therapists being trained for the future.


  • We just went through this with my son just before he turned 3. You have an individual assessment based om your child’s needs. Thankfully he wasn’t too bad. We were given cards to practice sounds. We also got him to repeat what we said. Encouraging him to ask for things rather than pointing or dragging us to them. We also needed to encourage him to say longer sentences so 3-4 word sentences. We had dedicated speech/play time so for example he like play dough so we withheld until he asked for it (obviously as long as it doesn’t upset them). So he may have to say “have blue play dough please”. Once he said it then he got it. If we were going out and he said car then we got him to repeat something like “we go car now” so he was extending his sentences. He would repeat one word at a time initially but he eventually built up his vocab and sentences started coming along. It’s a lot of homework but worth it for results.


  • It really depends what the problem is.
    Speech therapy covers a lot of areas for kids that have problems with a lisp, hearing issues, those with a stutter, etc
    You could perhaps look for books at the local library that deal with the issues that your child has.


  • I had to get my daughter off the bottle and dummy and that worked for her. Also don’t let them be lazy when they know how to say what they want don’t let them just point to it.


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