Does anyone do speech therapy at home?

[marsha617]

My son has a speech & language delay. He is 7 years old and probably at a 5 year old level. We have a new health insurance and rates went way up so we decided I would work with him at home. I am pregnant with my 4th boy now, and it seems this is a good time to take some time off from therapy. Going there with all the kids would be a chore! Ds went to speech therapy for nearly 4 years until now. I actually have peace about not sending him at this time. I am aware that public school offers free therapy but ds had a BAD experience at this particular school his kindergarten year and we haven't gone back there since.

 

Does anyone work with your kids at home because they are not sending their child to a therpist? Or if you are sending your child to therapy what extra things do you do at home??

 

Any suggestions as to what I could be doing or using??

 

Thanks!

[debbiec]

ONe thing we did for a time, was go to a private therapist monthly on a "consult" basis. Basically, we met with her once a month where she would work with him, check his progress and then give us a months worth of speech activities to do at home ( she would demonstarte how they were to be done during the speech session). Our insurance didn't pay for any of it, so it was great to move from weekly to monthly for financial reasons and just logistics.

[dtsmamtj]

We use a neurodevelopmental center at our local hospital because our insurance won't pay for any assitance for our son, but will help 2x a month at the hospital. The therapist will show me what to do duing the weeks we are not coming. I am not sure what will happen now that we are getting a different therapist - our past one was very supportive of home schooling and working with him at home to cut costs, but have found that not all will be like that so it may come down to only being a home after all. She taught me to breakdown what my son's issues were (i.e, catagorization, following multiple step instructions, etc.) and then looking on the internet (Quia I think was the online program) or creating my own ways to work with these different issues. Our son has CAPD and on the spectrum but this is what has helped us.

 

T

[swellmomma]

I do speech therapy with my 4 year old at home. We tried private therapy and he just hides under the table so that was pointless. I bought the speechercise cds as they focus not only on sounds but mouth exercises as well, which we need as the muscles in his tongue and jaw are under developed. I also use th Jolly Phonics program, which seems weird to use a phonics program for a speech issue but it is broken down to teach the sounds well, and the dvd helps show proper mouth shape and tongue use for the sounds. In addition to all of that I had the local health unit (that's who does the speech therapy here) send me a package with the worksheets they use for the sound we are working on. Of course lots of reinforcement, acting stupid (meaning I pretend I don't know what he is trying to tell me or ask me if he doesn't stop and try the sound.)

 

When he was first assessed at 2.5 he had a severe speech delay and actually qualified for a special preschool to help him, I chose not to send him. Now at 4.5 he is labelled as a mild delay bordering on normal. Pretty good for doing it at home imo since I don't really know what I am doing.

[Malenki]

We do!

 

I use Straight Talk which is published by NATHHAN and written by Marisa Lapish. It's been wonderful and we've seen tremendous progress in the last 9 months with our 3 yo son. We'll continue with it for at least another year.

 

We may have to "fine tune" with a therapist at some point but when we do we're going to do as others are doing: work with a therapist once a month and then do our homework.

[dtsmamtj]

We also did Straight Talk with our son when he was younger and it helped also.

 

 

T

[teachmom3]

We've mixed the two. The speech therapist would meet with ds for an hour weekly (private insurance and/or paying out-of-pocket), and then give me exercises to do with him in-between, to maximize the benefit.

 

Just a thought!

[GreenKitty]

I used to take my child to the local school for therapy. But she left and went to another school farther away. I have since used things I've found on the internet. Though a program I think would be much more beneficial right now. Thanks for those who've mentioned Straight Talk.

[sandellie4]

We're doing Straight Talk and I'm really happy with it. In addition, we are doing Oral Motor skills, and that's helping a lot more than I would have thought (dd doesn't have fine motor issues, but I had heard that Oral Motor can be very helpful). One thing we do, which dd just loves, is work a lot with food. I'll put cake frosting on her lips, like lipstick, and then she has to lick it off with her tongue going clockwise, counterclockwise, etc. We also work with straws and we have her blow things, like a miniature marshmallow, across the desk. I purchased some of my speech books and supplies from Super Duper Publications, and also purchased a few things from LinguiSystems (the latter being a bit more expensive but LinguiSystems had some items that Super Duper didn't have). We also use Wilson photo cards, with dd making up as many "sh" sounds as she can find that relate to the picture, etc. The rest of the stuff I get online; there's a tremendous amount of stuff. For example, dd was struggling to say "ch," and I found something online that had me instruct her to say "meet ship" faster and faster -- it turns into "me chip"! My dd thought that was just hilarious and walked around doing the exercise on her own, bursting into laughter when she finished.

 

Hope something is helpful to you, or helps get your creative juices flowing.

 

Sandy