If your child sees a Speech Pathologist once a week for 45 minutes, that session is a small slice of their waking week. The rest of their speech and language development happens at home, in the car, at the park, at the dinner table. Speech therapy practice at home is where most of the work happens. This article is about making the most of it.
01 . Why it matters
Why practising at home matters more than the session itself
A speech pathology session is not where most learning happens. It is where speech and language development plans are built and new skills are introduced. The repetition that turns a new sound, a new word or a new sentence structure into something automatic happens in the hours and days between sessions, and almost all of those hours are at home.
That is true at every age. A two-year-old learning to combine words. A four-year-old working on the “s” sound. A nine-year-old building vocabulary for school. An adult relearning speech after a stroke. In every case, the work of the session is to show the person and the people around them what to practise. The work between sessions is the practice itself.
This is also why a good Speech Pathologist will spend part of every session showing parents (or partners, or carers) exactly what to do. Good speech speech and language development practice at home starts with clear guidance from your clinician. If you have left a session unsure of what to practise this week, that is a flag worth raising with your Speech Pathologist directly.
02 . The evidence
What the evidence says about parent-led practice
Two meta-analyses of speech therapy practice and language development at home are worth knowing about. They reach the same conclusion: when parents are coached on what to do and they do it consistently, children’s language tends to improve.
The first, Roberts and Kaiser (2011) in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, reviewed 18 studies of parent-led language practice in children aged 18 months to five years. It found clear, positive effects on how well children both understood and used language, including for children with an intellectual disability.
A larger 2019 review in JAMA Pediatrics, Roberts and colleagues, pulled together 76 studies and found the same pattern. Coaching parents was linked to better language and communication overall, with the biggest gains for children who have a developmental language disorder, a lasting difficulty learning and using language.
The practical takeaway is the same one your child’s Speech Pathologist will already have told you. The skills carry over faster when the practice happens in the places the child actually lives, with the people they actually talk to.
It is not the session that builds the skill. It is what you do with the seven days after it.
03 . What works
Speech therapy practice at home: how to make it actually stick
The thing parents most often get wrong is treating home practice as a separate event, for example, they will schedule a twenty-minute block of speech and language development or “speech homework” after dinner, the child resists and the parent gives up after a week. That is not how language is learned.
A few principles for speech and language development that work better for speech therapy practice at home:
- Short and frequent beats long and structured. Five 90-second moments a day will move skills faster than one 10-minute block at the end of the day. The dinner table, the car, bath time and the walk to school are all language gold.
- Follow your child’s lead. If they are stacking blocks, talk about blocks. If they are pushing a truck, talk about the truck. Children learn the words for the things they are already attending to, not the things you wish they were attending to.
- Use the words and sounds your Speech Pathologist has flagged this week. If the target is the “s” sound, drop it into the things you are already saying. If the target is two-word combinations, model two-word combinations. The targets change each week or fortnight. They are not a fixed list.
- Narrate the day. Children pick up vocabulary from hearing it used in context. Cooking dinner is a vocabulary lesson. Sorting laundry is a vocabulary lesson. Putting on shoes is a vocabulary lesson.
- Pause and wait. When you ask a question or model a word, give your child five to ten seconds before you fill the silence. Children need processing time, and the pause is often where the language happens.
- Use what is already in the house. You do not need new toys, apps or workbooks. The toys, books and routines you already have are usually enough. The three toys in the next section are favourites because they pull double duty, but the principle works with almost anything.
If you are not sure which technique to use this week, ask your Speech Pathologist for one specific thing to focus on: one sound, one word type, or one routine. Trying to work on everything at once usually means working on nothing.
04 . Three toys
Three toys our Speech Pathologists actually use
These are not special toys. They are common toys our Speech Pathologists keep in session kits because they pull double duty across several skills at once. If you already own them, here is what to do with them. If you do not, any of them are cheap and easy to find.
Early language – wooden hammer-pound cube. A wooden cube with coloured balls or pegs that a toddler hammers through. Useful for:
- Giving 2 choices (e.g. green ball or blue ball?)
- Basic concepts (e.g. colours, shapes)
- Prepositions (e.g. in, on, behind, in front)
- Taking turns (e.g. my turn / your turn)
- Following directions (e.g. first put the blue ball in, then the orange ball)
- Sounds (e.g. the “b” sound in “ball” and “bang”, the “m” sound in “my”)
Preschool age – Beware of the Bear. A board game with bright graphics, unpredictable action and a “pop” element that holds a child’s attention long enough for a real speech practice block. Useful for:
- Verbs (e.g. open, close, pop, put)
- Turn-taking (e.g. my turn / your turn)
- Following directions (e.g. before you take the honey pot, take the green bear)
- Prepositions (e.g. above, in, out)
- Sounds (e.g. the “s” sound in “some” and “Sam”)
- Imaginative play
School-aged – Shopping List. A matching card game where children fill a shopping basket with the right items. Useful for:
- Following directions (e.g. before / after)
- Pronunciation of multisyllabic words (e.g. banana, tomato, capsicum)
- Vocabulary related to fruits, vegetables, cleaning supplies and other everyday categories
- Social skills (e.g. exchanging ideas, brainstorming, collaborative play)
- Negatives (e.g. on my list / not on my list)
The thing that makes these toys useful in a session is the same thing that makes them useful at home: they create natural turn-taking, they give the child a reason to talk, and they let a parent target several skills in five minutes without it feeling like a drill.
05 . When to ask for more
When to ask your Speech Pathologist for more help
Home practice is not a substitute for assessment. If your child is finding speech, language or social communication hard, the right first step is a Speech Pathology assessment, not a longer list of activities to try at home.
A few signs it is worth a conversation with a Speech Pathologist:
- Your child is not using single words by 18 months, or two-word combinations by two.
- People outside the family struggle to understand your child’s speech by age three.
- Your child is being teased, frustrated, or withdrawing because of how they speak.
- Reading or writing is harder than it should be for their age.
- They have started stuttering or have had a sudden change in voice or fluency.
- They have a diagnosis (autism, intellectual disability, hearing loss, cleft palate, cerebral palsy) and you have not yet been referred to a Speech Pathologist.
For the wider picture of what to look for and when, the Raising Children Network (an Australian Government-funded parenting resource) has age-by-age guides that are worth bookmarking.
If you would like a Speech Pathology assessment, our Speech Pathology team sees children and adults across our clinics. You can also see our team page for the clinicians and their backgrounds, or book directly without a referral.
