SpeechTea Blog

Now that you’ve educated the parents, coached them through strategies, and their child is demonstrating the Pre-Linguistic Skills we addressed in our first two blogs, we can start building on those skills! But where to begin? Think back on how you observe children acquiring language. Does a 1 year old spontaneously go from never making any verbalizations to suddenly responding to verbal routines or saying “hello” and “mama”? Not typically. All of those small little coos and giggles eventually manifest as whole, recognizable words over time and with the right encouragement.

Now that you have a fresh caseload with eager parents and children waiting for your expertise, the only thing that could bring you down is a parent coming into a session after a few weeks of therapy and asking, “So when exactly will my child begin to actually talk?”. While disappointing to hear, often we forget to educate parents on a crucial part of early intervention therapy: pre-linguistic skills!