Speech Help... Do You or Don't You?

[LindseyA]

I have had an abundance of kids for the past year with all sorts of speech issues. All 3 of my 4yo's need speech help. 1 currently goes to half day pre-k and the speech teacher at school can barely understand this child. (Mom's words). I know for a fact that all 3 of these 4yo's will need extra speech help in kindy. I have been working with them, repeating what they say with the corrections made. And usually they try to repeat correctly but can't. I try not to get frustrated since they are trying to learn, but today especially my patients is starting to wear thin. Thank goodness it's Friday though, I can recharge
Anyways, I am wondering how much effort do you all put towards helping with speech issues? Should I relax a little on this? I have noticed the dcm of the one in pre-k, repeat with the corrections. But this is the only dcm that does this, in front of me anyway.

[CalCare]

Hi! I have worked with children that get speech in the past. Unless you are trained (which I am not either!), you probably are not advised to be attempting to give speech therapy including something as basic as having them repeat things back to you or correcting them. You can be doing more harm than good- unintentionally of course. I know we all want to help the best we can and make things best for the children in our care, but you have to do things a certain way. The corrections and frustrating requests for repeating back can actually decrease the efficacy of their actual therapy. I'm very surprised the mom says the speech therapist can barely understand her child. I can't imagine any therapist saying something like that even if it were true. They are trained to communicate about children's delays in more positive ways! If all 3 will be doing speech in K, why aren't they evaluated now and you would be involved in planning and having therapists coming in now. The sooner the better for any delays and disabilities to get therapy. .. Good luck!

[Ariana]

I am convinced this is all stemming from parental addictions to electronics. Kids are not getting face to face time with parents which fosters language. Kids are looking at books on a tablet instead of face to face reading as well.

My advice is to just talk to them as much as humanly possible. I had a child start with me in September with ZERO language. I brought up my concerns but the parents were not interested in helping her (she still has letter formation issues that concern me). Now at 7 months later she is speaking in full sentences. I did my best to just talk to her constantly face to face. Describing what she is doing, what I am doing, expanding on her speech etc.

My neighbours 3 year old has zero speech. He gestures and grunts. Guess who is completely addicted to her iphone? Mom! He is also a game addict and play Minecraft at 3 years old

[Josiegirl]

OP< I do what you do basically. I will repeat what my dcg says, enunciating my words to her clearly. You know how sometimes we rush off words, etc.; I make sure I take my time with her. I don't actively sit with her and do letters or drills or anything but just speaking clearly, slowly...I can't see what harm that would do as long as you don't make an issue of it?? When my dcg first started speech therapy at 3 yo, the therapist told us which letters she seemed to be having trouble with so we'd make a point to use lots of words with those sounds. Plus another thing she told us was that if that letter is at the end of the word instead of the beginning, it's easier to learn. Ex.: giraffe should be easier than first. Not sure if it's true

[Thriftylady]

I have one with speech issues right now. He has other issues I know also, but parents refuse to do anything. I am rather annoyed with the parents right now because he is also a bed wetter and they are punishing and bribing for that, something he can't control. They won't take him to the doctor!

I don't do anything with his speech, because I don't have a clue what to do. It is becoming a bigger and bigger problem, because he is a little sponge and wants to learn everything. He has learned his letters (upper and lower) counting mostly to 100 by himself, recognizes most of the numbers. We are now on sight words and with his speech that is an issue. How do you teach letter sounds to a child that can't make the sounds? My fear is that it will set him behind in kindy, because it usually takes the whole year to get services set up for the next year so he won't get any help until at least first grade.

[permanentvacation]

I inform them that they pronounced a word wrong, by saying, "No, it's not psketti, it's spaghetti. Say s pa ghe tti." I repeat that a time or two, while they are trying to say the word correctly. But it usually ends with me chuckling (in a nice, loving way), and saying something like, "We'll keep working on it." or " You're working on it.", or "You'll get it one of these times." But I don't stress myself over correcting their speech. I am not a speech therapist. I am just a mom and daycare provider who does my best at being a jack of all trades. My personal daughter had a speech problem when she was little. I tried my hardest to help her, but she wasn't able to say certain sounds properly until a professional speech therapist worked with her.

I believe that although we want the best for the children, we can't be everything for them. Just like if you ever took CPR and/or First Aid classes, they should have taught you to know your limits. If you find the need to tend to someone who is hurt, only do as much as you are truly trained to do. The same thing applies to other situations. Yes, you are a daycare provider, but you are not a trained speech therapist. So, you do as much as you can to help the child/ren learn to speak correctly, but don't expect more of yourself than you have been trained for and don't expect the children to learn more from you than you are trained to teach.

You said that the one child currently has a speech therapist working with him/her, but the therapist can't understand much of what the child says. I would think that the therapist will continue working with the child or refer the child to someone who could help the child better than they can.

[permanentvacation]

Another thing I do is when I notice a child putting all of the words in a sentence together as if they were all one word, then I repeat the sentence and make clear separations between each word to show the child that each word is supposed to be said individually. And then tell the child to say the sentence again slowly with space between each word. Often I have to have the child repeat the sentence one word at a time after I say each word separately. For example, I would say, "I" then the child would say 'I' then I would say 'like' then the child would say 'like' then I would say 'dogs.' Then the child would say 'dogs.' Then I would repeat the entire sentence with elaborate spacing between the words.

But again, I don't stress myself about it. I don't get over worried about it. I just do it naturally when I have the time to go over it all with the child and when I don't have something else that I need to focus on at the time. And again, it typically ends with me saying something like, "Alright, we'll keep working on it."

[Febby]

Do all three of your 4s get speech therapy? Would it be possible for you to get copies of their therapy notes?

I also currently have 3 in speech therapy. Two of them have therapists who come to my center and work with them. The other one gets picked up early by mom once per week to go to therapy. The two whose therapists come to the center leave copies of their notes to the parents for us as well. The notes cover what they worked on and some techniques for parents to use at home to help with speech. We'll try to incorporate some of those techniques into our interactions with them.

Mostly, though, we do a lot of general things that help with language development. Reading books, singing songs, and actually having conversations with the children.

I don't usually repeat what they're saying unless I'm having trouble understanding them and trying to clarify what they're saying. "Did you say you want the wagon or dragon?" Buuuuuuuuuut if I notice one pronounce a word wrong, I will begin a conversation with them about whatever that is so they can hear me pronounce it correctly several times.

I don't make them sound out words slowly since when I was in speech therapy and had speech issues, I really, really hate when random people would try to make me sound out words reaaallly slowly. I'm also pretty darn sure it didn't actually help me either.

[Unregistered]

I looked around, and I found sites mentioning that you shouldn't correct and have them repeat back. I read you should just say the word correctly yourself, for example: dck: "We oh part?" Adult: "Can we go to the park?... Not right now, but..." Or whatever.

[LindseyA]

Thank you all for your feedback! Only one of the 3 is in speech therapy. The other parents seem uninterested. (I have casually mentioned concerns to them all). Since I am not that well-educated on speech therapy, and I certainly don't want to be a disservice to these kids, I will leave it to the parents & the pros.

[Laurel]

I looked around, and I found sites mentioning that you shouldn't correct and have them repeat back. I read you should just say the word correctly yourself, for example: dck: "We oh part?" Adult: "Can we go to the park?... Not right now, but..." Or whatever.

I've heard the same thing. Both my first son and now my grandson were hard if not impossible to understand. My son was the worst though. We really didn't do anything and he improved with age. So when my grandson's teacher pushed for speech therapy my daughter asked for my advice. I told her I wouldn't do anything except to speak to him correctly. That was about a year ago and he is doing much better with no intervention. A friend of mine's grandson was in a special preschool for speech with 2 speech teachers in the classroom of 8 children for 2 years. She said that really she didn't feel it did much good. She loved the school and the teachers but his speech wasn't much improved, if at all.

I'm not saying that intervention is never necessary but it seems like most children just grow out of it. I'd wait for public school to make the call as they have resources, etc.

[spedmommy4]

I am not a speech therapist, but I carried out the speech therapists plans for each of the kids on my caseload when I worked as a special education teacher.

In this situation, you should not have the kids repeat sentences or words. Don't do anything therapeutic unless given recommendations by the child's therapist.

In general, all children with significant speech delays can benefit when their caregivers:
* model clear speech
* use shorter sentences. Keep your grammatically correct sentences and no more than 1-2 words longer than their average sentence
* talk about objects and events in context
* emphasize (slightly) important words with your voice
* talk about things the child is interested in, especially during play

[spedmommy4]

I've heard the same thing. Both my first son and now my grandson were hard if not impossible to understand. My son was the worst though. We really didn't do anything and he improved with age. So when my grandson's teacher pushed for speech therapy my daughter asked for my advice. I told her I wouldn't do anything except to speak to him correctly. That was about a year ago and he is doing much better with no intervention. A friend of mine's grandson was in a special preschool for speech with 2 speech teachers in the classroom of 8 children for 2 years. She said that really she didn't feel it did much good. She loved the school and the teachers but his speech wasn't much improved, if at all.

I'm not saying that intervention is never necessary but it seems like most children just grow out of it. I'd wait for public school to make the call as they have resources, etc.

That's not uncommon. According to the speech pathologist I worked with, about 75% of kids end up catching up eventually. (And would have without intervention) The problem is, it's impossible to predict which kids are going to fall in the 25% that won't catch up.