When my Lucas turned 2 he was showing the same speech delays that his brother had at that age so I didn?t really worry too much. He still had his paci and I attributed a lot of his non-speech to him wanting his paci. A few months after he turned 2 we just took it away. He did much better than we anticipated & his speech improved a little.
At 26 months he was only saying few words & only using 1 syllable. Most of the words he used were ?ma? and ?da?. He just wasn?t interested in expressing himself. By 29 months I was starting to get more concerned because his speech still wasn?t improving. He?d only say the beginning sound of a word & never used the ?L? sound. He wouldn?t even attempt it.
At 30 months I went to the base & made an appointment for him to be tested. Turns out he tested in the ?normal? range in most areas but was low in his expressive language. They decided that although he tested normal in the major areas aside from expressive that he was low enough on the scale to get him in.
So since January he has been seeing a speech therapist every Friday morning. She worked with him one-on-one the first few sessions just so she could get to know him and really see how he would benefit from the therapy, then I had to take over while she observed and then we?d chat about the session.
I?ve learned SO much and I really believe my teaching background has helped a LOT. Lucas? speech has drastically improved! He speaks during play, he uses 2-3 words together & he is expressing his feelings to us!!! This is HUGE you guys. Some of the things she noticed was that he displayed some ADHD tendencies ? not making eye contact, losing focus quickly, if he would fail he?d want to quit & there were a few others as well. She taught me some little tricks to help with those so that as he continues to learn & develop he will have the skills to help himself focus & calm down without allowing his body to take over and cause a disruption.
I have a bag of ?goodies? that I do with him every day. This is just Lucas & Mommy time and it has helped his behavior & speech drastically! We don?t have a lot of ?formal? activities, just different things that get him to engage in different speech. For example, one of the bags has blocks that are colored so we put them on the peg board, taking turns, and talk about colors. This activity helps teach him colors (which he still doesn?t get) but it also helps with taking turns and learning to be patient. Another activity that he loves is a bag that has various cards with images on them and then matching figures to go with it. When I pull the card out I say what the image is ? like tiger ? and then have him attempt to say it. He puts the card down in front of him and then I take out the tiger figure. Once we have all the cards and figures out we then have them ?play? together while using various action/description words. This activity has helped him a lot! He never used to talk during independent play and now he does!!
He has improved so much that the speech therapist only comes every other week to see us & give us little tasks to do during the week. Once he turns 3 he will then start going to the British preschool and if they see any delays they will then reference him to someone in the school system. I am confident that we won?t have to do that though. My little Lucas is a star and is improving leaps & bounds!
Do you have a child that is in speech therapy?
What sorts of activities do you do to help them?
Source: http://www.themommabird.com/2013/03/11/speech-therapy/
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