4 Year Old Girl with Speech Delay - How Can I Help Her at Hom?

I can understand your concern but let me assure you, as a mother of a 5-year old child who did have a significant speech delay (and still does but to a greatly lesser extent), children can pick up language so fast once they are ready to and once their medical issues have been taken care of, it can leave your head spinning. And, really, the whole speech development milestones are not hard and fast rules. There are plenty of 2-year olds that have yet to start talking for no other reason than that's just not where they are right now in their development process.

Now that your daughter's ear issues have been taken care of, she's probably stockpiling words in her receptive vocabulary, ready for use for when she is finally ready to talk. What you can do right now to help her along with her speech development, is the following:

* Talk, talk, talk and talk to her as much as possible.
* Label anything and everything.
* Get her around kids her age as much as possible (park, playgroups, church, etc.) so that she has them to model her speeking skills after.
* And, while you are doing all of this, make sure that you give her a chance to talk -- don't jump in there and immediately speak for her. If you ask her a question, pause for a bit and give her a chance to make a sound or attempt a response somehow. If she does try to answer you, make it a big (HUGE) deal by tickling her and giving her lots of praise. If she's just not there yet, you can give her the words by telling her what she could say.

If you do all of this, you will have her talking in no time flat.

Because she has a hearing problem....and, this is the 'cause' of her speech delay... I would go that route and get her therapy as a 'hearing impaired' child, Versus, as a 'speech delayed' child. The approach in helping a child, is different.

That might make a difference.

My son gets speech therapy and makes progress. (he is simply delayed, no apraxia or anything developmentally 'wrong' with him). If your child is not making progress or the 'speech' therapy is not making a difference... then I would investigate other routes of handling this, as I mentioned above.

Try contacting your Pediatrician about this and where you can go... for 'hearing impaired' support groups or therapy for children

Try also do a Google search using the search words "resources for hearing impaired children."

good luck,
Susan

S.,

My son was prescribed PT/OT when he was an infant, and the therapist worked with me to teach me how to help him at home. She gave me a bunch of reading materials and games to play with him that would improve his walking and overtime, we were done faster...

Have you talked to the therapist and asked about her progress? Ask if there is anything you can be doing to help with the process? Checked into local support groups or Moms Groups that can help with resources? Local School District? Other Learning Centers for second opinion on her progress?

Try going to your local school district and asking about speech language therapy, and what resources they provide for parent enrichment. I've worked as a teacher, and my sister when to speech therapy when she was little and this was ALL stuff that was available to my parents and the parents of my students.

I hope someone has some sound advice for things they do at home that can help you help your little girl!

Good Luck!

D..

Call your school district. They will evaluate her and possibly start her in speech therapy through her school so she is prepped for kindergarten. Talk to her and read to her a lot. This will get her hearing the words and pronunciation. Ask open ended questions so she has to talk more. Once kids are in kinder they seem to catch up quickly too.

S.:
Read....read.....read.....She will love the time you share with her, and she'll progress. I wish you and your sweetie the best.

I'm no expert on this, but we constantly tell our 3YO to look at our mouth while we enunciate a word. She is only interested in about 3 attempts, but I think it does make a difference. It may teach her to watch peoples mouth and learn from others.

My son also has a speech delay. I highly suggest going to your local school and requesting in writting a speech evaluation the HAVE to respond in 30 days by law. If you can get her into the program this year she will automaticlly receive the benifits next year when she starts kindergarten. My son was evaluated at age 4 and it made the transition in kindergarten a lot easier because he was already in the system. Also have her look at you when you pronounce things. My sons speech teachers always says just correct as you go if she miss says a word you say it the right way also over state like baTTT