Start teaching your child at home. Download my FREE home therapy checklist→ https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Speech therapy for 3 years olds should be all about exploring toys whilst doing some structured tasks at the table - generally, this is when children start to sit at the table. A good rule of thumb is 50% on the table, and 50% off the table playing.

Toys that you can use for developing play skills:

• Cookset
• Doctor’s kit
• Carparks
• Dollhouse
• Vending machine
• Zingo
• Smatch

Not limited to the above, you can use any toy that has some sort of sequence to it. For example like the washing machine kit, you have to wash, hang, and then iron. And also anything that requires pretending, such as a doctor’s kit where children take on different roles.

What language level is your child at?

• Is he non-verbal? Teach imitation, PECS, and gestures to help him communicate better
• Is she at the 1-word level? 
• Target more verbs and link into VO
• ...

Start teaching your child at home. Download my FREE home therapy checklist→ https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Speech therapy for 2-year-olds is all about communication intention, building routines, and following the child's lead. This is because they have a low-attention span and probably can only concentrate around 5-10 minutes with you at a time.

Does your child have speech problems? Relax, it’s normal for 2-year-olds to have speech errors. Check out what your child should be able to do at 2: https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/23/

Because you cannot sit your 2 years old down to drill speech sounds. You should try doing these:

Build phonological awareness - speak slower and articulate sounds clearer. Sing songs and clap out syllables to your child.

Bombard your child with the sounds that she hasn’t learned yet. Emphasize it when you come across a word that has those sounds.

You can wait a bit until you start speech goals, focus on...

The 3 Step Process We Use to Teach Verbal Imitation. Download my FREE non-verbal guide → https://www.agentsofspeech.com/non-verbal-guide

Start teaching communication initiation

Are you prompting communication?

Whenever you ask a question like “what do you want” or “what do you say” it creates a routine for your child to follow. He thinks that he can only get what he wants AFTER you asked those questions. That’s why he never initiates communication and remains at the same language level!

Children become passive

Focus your efforts on teaching a child to initiate communication with you. The child should come to you, not the other way round. Or else children will become passive, because you’ve given no chance for him to actually ask for help or things that he might want.

It needs to be the correct context!

Speech delayed children and those who are on the autistic spectrum rely on non-verbal cues to help them navigate the world. So sometimes...

The 3 Step Process We Use to Teach Verbal Imitation. Download my FREE non-verbal guide → https://www.agentsofspeech.com/non-verbal-guide

No verbal commands

Say “do this”, “follow me”, “copy me”

A common mistake I see in parents when they ask their children to imitate what they do is that there’s too much talking! It’s confusing for the child when you ask him to follow your commands when actually you want him to copy what you do. So keep things simple and use minimal verbal commands, if you should speak only give imitation commands like “copy me”, “do this” or “follow me”. 

Give praises and say “good job”, “awesome”...

You should talk and praise when your child does the right thing. Because you’re teaching imitation, there shouldn’t be much failure (more on that later) so whenever she finishes an action, always tells the child that she did a good job....

Start teaching your child at home. Download my FREE home therapy checklist→ https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Teach with a context

Wrong puzzle pieces

If your child likes puzzles then great! Keep giving the wrong puzzle pieces to your child (maybe from another set) when it doesn’t fit, then you have the correct context to teach the word “no”.

Wrong tools

Again, think about what your child is using to play, eat and use things around the house. Give them the wrong tool to do so. An example would be to give a broken spoon or fork when they ask for it. Or during play, give them a toy that has no batteries or something that you need to fix.

Not the thing they want

Another context you can use is to give your child something that he doesn’t want. If he asks for cookies, give something totally useless to your child. When you see him pushing it away or throwing it, then you can teach “no’ it's the perfect context!

Is this a...

Start teaching your child at home. Download my FREE home therapy checklist→ https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Teach vocabulary like they do in YouTube videos:

No questions

If you child can remember words and phrases from YouTube videos, then why not copy what’s working already? The first rule of YouTube videos is that they do not ask any questions. Even if they do, they’d answer it right away! So do the same for your child.

Keep repeating it

Videos that children like repeat over and over again. Sometimes, children on the spectrum or those who are speech delayed actually love these songs and routines so much that they can watch a video many times a day. So keep on repeating to your child, there’s no harm as long as you don’t force him to copy.

Keep it light and fun

It’s ok if your child doesn’t seem he’s listening or she’s looking elsewhere. You need to keep it fun, make funny sounds and keep things fresh! Maybe buy a new...

Start teaching your child at home. Download my FREE home therapy checklist→ https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Do you have goals for your speech delayed child to catch up? Is it sometimes that you are so focused on achieving that, you lose sight about your child's wishes?

I know these questions are terribly directed to make your feel like you're doing a bad job. No, this is not my intention. I want to tell you that if you do have plans and teach your child yourself... That's something great and your child is lucky!

However, when parents see some progress they will keep pushing and be rather disappointed when the child doesn't perform. When you KNOW that your child can do something and he/she doesn't respond... Most people choose to repeat the question or request until the child does something.

This isn't the best way to do things. Why? Because a child might not have grasped the idea 100%. And if you keep on drilling without helping any further, you're actually creating...

Start teaching your child at home. Download my FREE home therapy checklist→ https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Oromotor exercise is one of the most frequently mentioned topics in speech therapy. In fact, nearly every child who hasn't spoken yet by the age of 3.5 would have already tried some sort of oral motor exercise.

If you're looking for information about about oromotor exercises, please do understand that there are a lot of things that you can be working on rather than oromotor.

Yes, oromotor is useful but it doesn't mean that if a child cannot perform certain oromotor actions their speech would be worse off. We have a client who cannot stick out her tongue, cannot wag it left and right and can't even do the pucker lip nicely. Yet, her speech is perfect and everyone can understand her.

You also need to bridge from a certain oromotor pattern towards the speech sounds. If you keep on working on the movement but you don't work on actually talking, you child...

Start teaching your child at home. Download my FREE home therapy checklist→ https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Speech therapy for 4-year-old children should start at the table. At this age, no matter what their language ability is like - he should be able to sit down with you for at least 10-15 minutes at a time.

Use this time to introduce toys that are age-appropriate. If she's still loving those baby toys, start teaching her how to play with pretend play toys like doctor's kit and also some board games like shoots and ladders, funny bunny and etc...

Once your child can sit down with you to play with age-appropriate toys, the next step is really to teach!

Is your child's problem in speech, language, or both? Choose the 1 goal only, that will help your child the most. For example, if most of the time you cannot understand his pronunciation, then target his speech sounds. If you're not sure, please consult a qualified speech therapist for home therapy guidelines...

Start teaching your child at home. Download my FREE home therapy checklist→ https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Toy vending machines is my go-to toy for children over 3 years of age.

The reason is because there is a STRONG play sequence / routine that you can lean on when teaching sounds and words. With all the lights and sounds it, its a great toy to make your child happy and enjoy communicating with you.

The great thing about using toy vending machines for speech therapy activities is that you cannot skip a step. If you do not put in the coin, you won't be able to press the button! So it makes it an obligation for the child to speak to you. This makes puts off a lot pressure from you as a parent if you're always struggling to create suspense and making things fun on a daily basis.

By sticking to this play routine, you can easily add words, add players and add more rules to the existing structure to help your child start talking more with you.

Here is what we discuss:
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