Leroy Said:

How can I help give my child speech therapy?

We Answered:

Those errors are very normal. "Th" can be helped by telling her to put her tongue between her teeth. (To make "f" she's biting her lip.) Exagerate in the style of Yosemite Sam. To be totally safe, however, I'd have her evaluated by a speech therapist and do the exercises she suggests. Otherwise, you could make the problem worse.

Erik Said:

Grandparents gift of Speech Therapy to child taxable?

We Answered:

Gifts are not shown anywhere on anyone's income tax return. If they have made gifts of more than $13,000 they are required to file a gift tax return, but any tax due will be paid by them.

If the child lived with the grandparents for more than six months of the year, they may use these payments as deductible medical expenses even if they cannot claim the child as their dependent (for example, if you also lived with the child and claim the child).

Under no circumstance are these payments taxable to the child or parents.

Ray Said:

How does speech therapy teach a child to speak?

We Answered:

Many people think that speech therapy is just about how to pronounce words but it covers a whole range of other issues as well including:
- The absence of speech or not reaching speech milestones at an appropriate age
- dyspraxia (words or sentences don't come out right)
- Not using language in a functional way (eg. my daughter had good speech and a very large vocabulary but did not use her speech to ask for things or to tell me if something was wrong etc)
- Language comprehension issues
- Auditory processing issues (when they hear and understand individual words but may have difficulty following instructions etc)
- Social issues (how they relate to others)
- Eating issues and oral motor issues
...and much more.

Depending on your child's issues the speech therapist will use a range of techniques to help them develop their speech. With a very young child a good speech therapist will use mostly games and fun activities to encourage them to speak and use their language in an appropriate way; the games are usually designed or reworked to maximise the language skills that you are working on.

A good speech therapist will also work with you as much or even more than your son. They will understand that at this age his primary relationship is with you (and your husband) so they will teach you how to teach him. Most speech therapists will give you some things to work on at home but a really goods speech therapist will teach how to incorporate these lessons into your everyday life (eg. I never have to sit down to do speech practise with my daughter, it is incorporated naturally into our conversations and play time)

Some examples (these were done at various stages over the last 3.5 years) :
To encourage my daughter to ask for things we did blowing bubbles. She could say the word "bubbles" and would say it if she saw them but she never asked for them. To get her to ask I would hold the wand in front of my mouth ready to blow but wouldn't actually blow until she said "Bubbles"; I then blew lots of bubbles for her to play with which rewarded her for asking.

Another thing we did was to put all her toys away in see-through plastic boxes. She couldn't get her toys without asking for them. This worked particularly well for things that had lots of pieces (eg. blocks) because I could give her just one at a time which would encourage her to ask over and over again to get all the blocks.

To encourage my daughter to take turns speaking (she would often speak without listening to the person she was talking to) we played lots of games where you took turns. Once she understood how to take turns we talked about "your turn" and "my turn" in conversations.

To encourage her to listen better to what people were saying we would play a listening game where she had to follow all my instructions (without me having to repeat myself) and at some point one of the instructions would be "Go and get a cookie" (or other treat). This made her listen really well!

All these sound really simple but they were VERY effective and my daughter's speech therapist has a never ending supply of ideas like this. We started speech therapy at 16 months and I have never regretted the decision to start so young. Her specific condition means that the she will probably be in speech therapy for some time to come but she is doing much better than other kids of the same age with the same condition because we started so early.

Good luck

Jo Said:

How soon can a child start speech therapy?

We Answered:

he will in time. some kids take longer than others. my son (now 7) talked right on time, but my daughter (now 4) didn't say a word until about 2.5 years old. the problem with her was she didn't have to say anything to communicate with us cause we already knew what she wanted with her gestures and babbles. i started acting like i couldn't understand her after a while and she eventually got frustrated and started speaking to us! she's also the second child tho... and i've always heard of the middles children taking longer to talk.

hope i've helped a little. good luck.

Eileen Said:

any experiences with speech therapy with an autistic child?

We Answered:

Since your son is basically nonverbal they'll probably use a picture exchange system with him. My son is in speech therapy twice a week and they use this with him. Basically he has laminated pictures of different foods/activities and his speech therapy will put 2 choices on a velcro strip on a binder and have him choose between the 2 things. Like for example he might choose between milk or juice or between playdough and crayons (coloring). My son speaks some now but he is still very much delayed. My son has a vocabulary of about 30-35 words now... when he first started speech therapy at 18 months old he could only say 3 words (mama, baba, dada). Now he does say real words like "ball" or "turtle". I can understand you being skeptical but I would definitely give the speech therapy a try. They will also probably try to teach him a few signs in addition to the picture exchange system. They will probably try to get him to sign "more" or "done" or say either.

Mathew Said:

How would I know if my 6 year old child needs speech therapy?

We Answered:

Call a speech therapist. They should know if you need a referral from your pediatrician. Does he go to school? I would think his teacher would talk to you if there was a concern. Or maybe you should bring it up w/ the teacher. Some school districts have speech therapists on staff.

Russell Said:

How long should my child be in speech therapy?

We Answered:

It's difficult to say without knowing her age. Some speech delays take a couple years to fix- and /r/ is certainly a VERY difficult sound for many children. The older your daughter is the harder it will be because she has been practicing it incorrectly for so many years.

It will likely sound unnatural at first- because it is!! She has been likely using other sounds in place of /r/, so for her it is a new sound. Give her time, do lots of things at home and encourage her to follow through with what is being asked of her in speech therapy. In my experience, many children don't care to fix their /r/ and thus don't make any progress. If she is truly motivated then it will come with a little time. When you catch her saying a good /r/, give her lots of praise for it.

And it's total bull that a speech therapist has less education than a speech pathologist. It's two ways of saying the same thing. If you are talking about a speech therapist in a school district, that speech therapist has a master's degree as the entry level REQUIREMENT for that position.

And I disagree that taking her to another therapist would change anything.