Effective Speech therapy activities for toddlers at home
Every child is unique. Every child talks at their own speed and at a different age. However, there are speech therapy activities for children that can help your child learn to speak.
Few Speech Therapy Activities for Toddlers
Use Basic Sounds
Use simple sounds like "da" and "ta" or "aa" or "ooh" to babies even when they are too young. Have a great response from kids with these sounds. These simple speech therapy activities help your child listen to you and as they grow old, they will try to imitate you.
Speak in a low and soft tone:
Have a face to face conversation with your child in a low and friendly tone. Eye to eye contact, when talking to them helps them understand your speech.
Gadgets don't help
Giving electronic gadgets to your little ones when you are busy or you are not at home doesn't help them. Direct contact with children is always the best way to deal with them.
Spend time with kids
Playing is the best way to communicate with them. Let them tell you what they want and it is one of the best ways to make them speak without pressuring them.
Talk when you act
Keep talking to them each time when you are doing something like bathing, cooking, dressing up. Tell them if you are going out/ by what time you will come back and many.
Reading for them
Reading for kids is another good speech therapy activity. While reading introduces simple words, colors, shapes, and sizes to them and tries to make them repeat after you say it.
Also try to develop motor skills in your child while you talk, play, and read for them.
Introduce new words to them like names of fruits, foods, or toys when they ask you and give them a choice (in foods or dresses or so on). Let them make their choice. This helps with their decision-making skills.
Singing
Singing nursery rhymes or small songs is the best speech therapy activity for kids. They will love it because of the rhythm and develop the relationship between you and your child. It is fun and worth trying.
Try making hand gestures while singing which makes the child understand what is the meaning of the word and the baby starts enjoying it.
Communication should be encouraged
Try to communicate with your child directly. Introduce them words like "mom", "dad", car, and so on.
Encourage them to talk. Introduce them the words like sorry, please when you give or take. These will make the child humble and polite.
Toys
Toys are another best way of speech therapy activities. They are the most helpful tools to develop your child's language and motor skills. There are a lot of types of toys available in the market to serve the purpose. You can choose a piano that encourages the child to recognize the sound of keystrokes or toys which your child likes (sandpit kit, cars, dolls).
You can also choose building blocks or stacking up toys to encourage imaginary skills and motor skills in your child. You can teach them the colors, sizes, and shapes with these blocks.
Prefer activity toys like balls, cars, drums, etc., with these toys, you can play along and teach them new words like push, kick the ball, and beat the drums which could be part of fun learning.
Sand toys are another great choice. Buy them a sandpit kit. You can make them learn the words sand, dig, pour. A magnifying glass would be fun for them. They observe using the glass and could learn words like ants, rocks, and so on.
You can buy them even toys of animal figures and make them learn words of names of animals.
FlashCards is also a major speech therapy activity for your child. They help your child in recognizing the words and try to make them repeat the words after you.