We recently recorded a video for our website to address the most commonly asked questions regarding speech therapy and language therapy for children or adults.
We thought this video will be very useful for many parents out there thinking about speech therapy and if they should enrol their child. The transcript of the video is provided below. Please share and like this video.
Hello, welcome to Leo Magan. We are a speech and language therapy centre that provides help for children right up to adults with speech, language or social skills difficulties. So today I’ll like to share some questions that parents may have about speech and language therapy—some commonly asked questions, and share with you how we can help.
Most parents probably expect that “I think I might have difficulties teaching my child high school Chemistry” or “I might have difficulties teaching my child Algebra”.
But when parents find themselves in the situation where they are not able to teach their little two or three year-old, and not able to help them to get from the first words, or maybe getting from words to sentences, or maybe even just coaching their regular year 1 or primary 2 children with their schoolwork, it’s very worrying and frustrating, and also very puzzling.
One question that many parents have for me is how does speech and language therapy work? What do we actually do?
One reason why we are able to help is that we see more of the problem, whereas parents may actually just come in and say “oh my child can’t talk or has a speech problem”.
We are able to assess the problem in more detail and find out quite a number of different factors.
For example, is the difficulty because of an oral-motor difficulty, in other words more of like a physical difficulty, coordinating the lip and tongue muscles, or is it more of what we call a cognitive issue where the child may have difficulty understanding what communication is all about?
Your child can be very good at naming different words. Maybe they can name you different animals, different shapes and so forth, but they are not able to understand how to interact with people.
We are able to see more of the problem and diagnose in more detail, because essentially what’s happening when you are thinking about bringing your child for speech and language therapy, is that a lot of skills that your child’s peers may have are very simple for them.
It’s very small steps. For example, if they have no sensory issues, they’ve got no hearing problems, they attend school, they have the right opportunities, for them it’s a very small step. The teacher teaches something, and the child is able to follow.
But what happens for your child is that it’s a very big step. So essentially, a speech and language therapist will help you to assess more of the problem, so that you can diagnose the problem more accurately, and then you can direct your efforts more specifically to the problem. That’s very important.
Another skill that a speech and language therapist needs is that for this big, big step to break it down into small little steps. That’s not very easy to do if you don’t have the right training.
What some parents might be able to do is that they are able to do the last few steps when it’s close, when the child is almost nearly there, when they are maybe just getting borderline pass, so called, and then just helping them to do a little better.
Some parents may find that it’s easier to do the bottom few steps to really going down to the basics. But they find that it’s very hard to bridge the gap, and help the child to reach the level that they are supposed to be.
Maybe they are already in year 3 or 4 of primary school (or Grade 3 or 4), but in terms of reading, they can read something really well, so it’s not a problem of reading issues such as dyslexia, but maybe for them it’s more of what we call a language impairment.
In other words, it’s almost like a foreign language to them. You could probably pick up an instruction booklet that comes in different languages – Italian, Portuguese, and you can try to sound it out. You might even get the names right.
It’s a little bit like reading Italian names off a restaurant menu – Marinara or whatever. So you can actually read it aloud, and some children do. They sound very fluent and confident but when you ask them a question when they are performing in school, they are going to have difficulty actually answering the question because for them it’s almost like a foreign language.
They are not able to process it. So it’s very important to diagnose the different issues because obviously, speech and language development start all the way from about 1+ year old. When you expect the first word from the child, to starting to combine words together, and then from there, from speech, from verbal language, listening and speaking to move on to what we call written language, which is being able to write and to read.
Therefore another common question that parents have for me, is that “Is my child going to just outgrow this?”, “Should I wait?” and so forth. As I’ve started to indicate just now, development happens in stages and in the earlier stages, each stage will actually set the stage for the next stage.
If you don’t have the first word, if you don’t start picking up lots of different vocabulary, you probably won’t have the vocabulary to move on to the second stage: using sentences. If you are not able to speak in sentences, what research has found is that as much as ½ to ¾ of children with speech difficulties may then go on to develop difficulties with language, with reading, picking up reading and so forth.
And even for reading as well, children need to move from just learning to read to a stage where they can start to be reading to learn, because you are reading to learn other subjects.
You are reading to learn science, you are reading to learn mathematics, you are reading to learn other subjects and to listen to instructions, and most of the classroom instructions will take place through listening.
You can see how each stage sets the stage for the next. So if your child is having difficulty at any stage, it’s going to take him or her more time to get through the school work, it’s going to be more frustrating and probably it will affect areas such as attention and behavior as well, because if you don’t understand what’s going on, it’s much easier to switch off.
What a lot of parents find is that once they start speech and language therapy, when the child’s speech and language improves, their attention will improve, their behavior will improve as well. And frankly, as for the therapy sessions, we usually make it really fun for the kids, so it’s something that’s really enjoyable for them as well.
You probably don’t want to take the risk of waiting and then having to catch up later on, or to have the problem aggravated because time is something that you can’t really buy back for the child. And even with speech and language therapy, it still takes time for the child to develop anyway.
It’s a little bit like planting a tree or something like that.
Even if you use the right fertilizers and provide the right environment, there is still a time frame. Even if your child starts speech and language therapy, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be resolved next week.
But you do expect that in a matter of weeks or months, your child will be able to perform much better. For a child, very often it’s not just about the speech and language, it’s about how they see themselves, and their confidence will improve.
And even for adults, we have adults who come in and I would think that it’s mostly about work. Maybe they want to improve their speech or maybe work on their stuttering because of work issues, to make it easier at work and so forth.
But about half of the adults who came in actually mentioned that it’s not just about work.
It’s about the fact that they say “I just want to feel like I can express myself too, when I’m out with my friends, everybody has got ideas to contribute – they are talking about where they want to go, what they want to eat, and so forth, and I just feel that hey, I want to participate as well.”
I think this is a very important part of speech and language development whether we’re talking about a child or an adult.
If you are a parent, or maybe if you are concerned about any speech issues yourself, one easiest solution, rather than having all the worry and the frustration, is probably to come in and have a chat with us for your own peace of mind. You can look for intervention for your child, and then we can take it from there.
The contact details are on our website, or you can find those below, and we look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.