Top Tips for Supporting Speech Sound Development

 

Speech sound development can take time with many children but can cause frustration and upset for your child if they are not being understood. Read below our top tips for aiding speech sound development and limiting your child’s frustrations.

 

• Listen to what your child’s message is rather than how they are saying it and always reply.
• Reduce your own pace when speaking to allow maximum opportunity for your child to listen and hear your clear speech.
• Model good pronunciation and repeat back your child’s utterance with clear accurate pronunciation so they can hear it clearly.
• Take the blame if you can’t understand e.g. ‘Mammy’s ears weren’t turned on that time” “sorry there was too much noise around when you were talking” and ask them to say their message again or show you what they meant.
• Give other listeners the context. If you know your child is talking about a specific subject let that be known to the other listeners “oh you want to tell nana about your artwork” this helps them to join in and be part of the conversation.
• Praise all communication attempts.