Your child comes to tell you about something that happened in the other room. You understand some key words like “lego” and “brother,” but the rest is less clear. They repeat themselves and you still don’t understand. They’re getting more frustrated, raising their voice, maybe starting to tantrum. You’re trying SO HARD to understand them and help them! Despite everyone’s best efforts, there’s a breakdown in communication.
When a child has an articulation delay or disorder, I hear a version of this story from a lot of families when we first start working together. In articulation treatment, our overarching goal is to improve communication with family & friends. Yes, our big goal is to produce “clear” speech. But, we also need an immediate goal to get the child and family communicating with less stress and frustration!
At the start of treatment, everyone’s first priority is to decrease the amount of frustration in these high-intensity moments.
Communication should be fun and functional– it helps us connect with each other through conversation and play, but it also helps us get our needs met.
What Can I Do?
Here are some strategies that can limit the frustration level and help your child and family communicate while they work on an articulation delay or disorder:
- “Can you show me?” They might point to it, pull you to it, mime something, use their AAC device if they have one, or show you a picture (those “First 100 Words” books have so many pictures in them!)
- “Can you describe it to me?” If it’s an item, ask them what it looks like, what you do with it, where it usually is. If it’s a place, ask them what the place looks like, what you do there, or how you get there.
- Repeat back what you do understand. It feels good to be understood, so even if you repeat back the 1 or 2 words you do understand, it should keep the frustration level from immediately elevating. “‘Lego?’ Your ‘brother?’ Can you show me?”
- Ask clarifying questions. Using choices of 2 when clarifying can be helpful. Examples are: You want me to come or stay here? Do you want this open or closed? Did it fall or get broken? Speech articulation tends to clear up when children imitate an adult versus producing the word independently, so modeling with choices could clear up the confusion!
- When you decipher their message: repeat it back to them with a normal rate of speech & clear articulation.
If you, you family or friends continue to have a difficulty understanding your child’s speech, connecting with a speech therapist would be a great next step. Parents can connect with their school speech therapist via their child’s teacher, insurance-based speech therapy via their pediatrician, or private speech therapy.
