Over the last few weeks, I have been writing a blog series targeted at assisting individuals and parents of children receiving speech therapy. Many of my patients and parents of younger patients attend for follow up sessions without having completed their speech exercises over the last week at home. These carry-over exercises are essential for the transition of new skills into everyday communication.
The most common reason reported for not completing homework is that there wasn’t enough time in the day to do the tasks or not enough toys and games to incorporate into therapy. This seems to be a common concern for many patients with a range of communication difficulties, so today I will be addressing some ways to overcome these hurdles when attempting to complete fluency or stuttering therapy.
Three tips for speech therapy
1. Incorporate the Camperdown fluency program into your daily routine
As with most therapy targets, the key to completing daily fluency exercises is incorporating them into your daily routine. For adults, this may involve choosing a specific time of the day to get homework done such as in the morning after breakfast just before leaving for work, or at the end of the day before brushing your teeth and going to sleep. The commute in the car on the way to work or back home can be good for the ten minutes a day of practice you need to do as part of the Camperdown fluency program. For children this may be on the way to school in the morning, or in the afternoon after homework is complete and just before playtime.
2. Fit the Lidcombe program into your day
The best results from practice sessions often come from sessions where the tasks are incorporated into daily activities. For example, if your child is learning to read and spends 20 minutes per day on reading, this can be a great time to do the 20 minutes of homework required for the Lidcombe program to be effective. No matter how busy you are, there is always at least five minutes in the day somewhere, to fit in speech homework.
3. Use an app to track your progress
Fluency counters to help track stuttering severity and therapy progress are often quite expensive. However, with advancements in technology and the popularity of applications on electronic devices, there are a number of applications available to track fluency severity and progress, with little or no cost, as long as you have a device to download them.
Many of the therapy programs for fluency such as the Lidcombe program require consistent daily practice in order to be effective, as evident by the research. As such, setting up a regular routine is crucial for gaining results in therapy.
Contact us for results focused speech therapy
This article was written by our Speech Pathologist Ashleigh Fattah who is a Speech Pathology Australia member. If you have speech pathology related questions, make an appointment. We‘ll provide you with simple and effective therapy targeted to your concerns. Contact us today
