With all that is going on at the moment, practicing your child's speech and language goals might seem like the last thing on your mind. Some of us need to work from home, some have little kids screaming all day long, some may have to help their children complete loads of homework. It's not easy! Do only as much as you can handle and as hard as it may get at times, try to enjoy this time you have together at home.
I know that many people enjoy doing art and crafts with their child so how about working on those goals at the same time?:) Also, arts and craft provides opportunities for incidental teaching which is where children learn the most. Since this activity provides opportunities for multi senosry and three-dimensional experiences (rather than using flat flashcards), your child is more likely to be attentive and thus learn more. Last but not least, art helps increase your child's confidence and they love to see their finished product, show it to others and talk about it.
Before starting the activity I need you to first think about your child's speech and language goals. Does your child need to increase his or her vocabulary? Are you working on improving sentence structure and utterance length? Does he or she need to improve intelligibility of a particular sound? Keep these goals in mind as they will help you in formulating questions and commenting as you go along. They will also help you in choosing the appropriate materials such as choosing red, green and purple colours if you are working on enhancing the 'r' sound.
Not very creative and this all seems daunting to you? No worries.. let your child do the work! Just set out different materials such as paper, glitter, scissors, pompoms, colours etc and see what your child comes up with. You can also use playdough, make jewellrey, use clay... always keep your child's interests in mind.
Without further ado, here are some tips to help you practice does drills and help your child's language flourish:
1. Be calm throughout the activity and let the activity and learning happen naturally as much as possible. Direct the conversation with the goals in mind as stated above, but do not ask too much questions. Try starting the conversation by commenting rather than just asking questions. For example 'I see that you have decided to paint that flower yellow which is my favourite colour'. Children will often then continue the conversation stating what their favourite colour is and you would have done this in the most natural way possible without adding demands.
2. When your child talks, see if you can model a better reply. If your child says 'red' whilst pointing to the apple you can say 'red apple' to model phrases. If your child just points to ball of playdough he has rolled you can give him a choice of words (if he is still non verbal) such as 'it looks to me like a ball or an apple. what is it? is it a ball or an apple?' If your child is working on sounds you can model the words not articulated properly.
3. Work on your child asking you questions. Do not intervene immediately if he needs help; give him time to show you and ask you that he needs help. Keep some materials out of reach so that he needs to ask you for them (example keep the glue or some colours close to you).
4. Focus on language understanding when giving directions to create a craft. Use directions at your child's level. If your child understands single commands use those initially such as 'cut the paper'. I like to challenge the children to the next level but do so cautiously so as not to frustrate them. You can move on to two- step commands such as cut the paper and glue the red pompom. Even more advanced? Use temporal commands such as 'before you cut the paper, glue the pompom'
5. Use materials to target descriptive language. This includes big/small, soft/hard, dry/wet. Target the words alone if you are targeting vocabulary expansion or include these words in phrases if you are working on lengthening your child's sentences.
6. Ask wh- questions such as 'who is this for?', 'why do you need th glue?'.. these questions are great for improving verbal reasoning skills.
7. Last but not least, ask your child to show his/her art work to others and to talk about it. Video-calling the grandparents during this time is an excellent time for him to do so!
There you have it! I hope that you have found these tips useful. Feel free to upload your artwork and share on your facebook or instagram page whilst tagging me so I can share. Include what prompts you used so you can inspire and help other parents too! Wishing you a great day and remember that you are the world to your child.. and you are always enough just the way you are xxx
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