Ways Speech Therapy Can Help Your Child
If you have a child with any type of speaking or speech issues, you may find yourself wondering if speech therapy would be beneficial to them and to the troubles they are having. There are many reasons and many ways in which speech therapy can help a child struggling with anything from a stammer to a lisp (and a variety of other speech impediments). Learn more about some of these ways speech therapy can help your child. Then, you can be sure you have all of the facts when you decide whether or not to pursue speech therapy for your child.
Improved Physical Speech Capabilities
One of the ways in which speech can be affected or impaired is actually through the physical mechanisms of speech. Your child, for example, may not be placing their tongue in the right place to pronounce certain sounds or words, or may be having other physical troubles with the mechanics of speaking.
Your child's speech therapist will identify these areas of physical difficulty and will work with your child on exercises and speech activities that will help them develop these physical speech capabilities. Through regular practice and repetition, your child will learn what proper speech feels like in their mouth and throats. This will teach them to overcome their speech impediment and help them to speak in a more understandable and clear manner.
Improved Stammers and Stutters
Stammers and stutters are another kind of speech issue that often come from the brain and mouth not communicating fast enough. Oftentimes, the child's mind is way ahead of the mouth on what they want to say and things can get jumbled up causing the stammer or stutter.
A speech therapist will help your child to better develop that brain-mouth connection and will help your child to learn to slow down so that they can say what they mean to say when they mean to say it without any issues. This can take numerous activities and exercises including breathing and meditative exercises.
Improved Self-Confidence and Reduced Anxiety
One of the biggest overall benefits of going to speech therapy is that children will learn to build their confidence and reduce their anxiety. Because they will have another source of non-judgmental support, they will feel more protected and cared for which can help boost confidence. They will also have skills and exercises that they have practiced to help them improve their speech and feel better about their communication skills.
Your child will also feel less anxiety because of this improved confidence, but also because they have the tools to speak in an understandable and clear manner.
Now that you know some of the ways speech therapy can help your child, you can schedule an appointment with a speech therapist as soon as possible.
