Summer Practice is Important

A speech therapy home program: the difference between progress and stagnation

If your child takes piano lessons, your job is to make sure she practices. When your child starts school, it’s your job to see that she does her homework, and help her with it at times. Even if it’s not your child that’s involved, there is almost no example of being able to hand a job over to an expert and having no responsibility for assuring success. I take my car to the mechanic for repairs, but once I get the car back I still need to monitor the fluid levels, watch the warning lights on the dash, clean the salt and grime off it to prevent it from rusting, and so on.

There are 168 hours in a week. If I see a child once a week for half an hour, that gives the child 167½ hours between sessions for the brain pathways we just spent 30 minutes building and reinforcing to atrophy from lack of practice. A daily speech therapy home practice program can go a long way toward maintaining the progress a child makes in therapy, and can make the difference between noticeable improvement and month after month of therapy with little or no change.

A home program does not need to be a major time commitment on your part, but it is important. Usually, I ask parents to try for 15 to 30 minutes a day, but even five or ten minutes every day will benefit your child more than an hour once a week.

Summer packets have gone home with some of the students. Others can use the pages on this blog. If your child brings back a completed summer packet or calendar from this website at the beginning of the school year, he/she will receive a special prize! Have a wonderful summer and making practice fun is an easy task! Everything we do with our children encourages language and we can provide many models for articulation and grammar.

"You don't need to spend a lot of money to have a vacation....enjoy the simple things in life."
Catherine Pulsifer