Speech Therapy Moms

In a few weeks we're going to make the transition to speech therapy -- currently DS is doing Developmental Intervention. They're not starting sooner because right now he doesn't have the attention span for speech therapy.

DS lacks oral motor function apparently. She's not sure at this point if he just hasn't made the connection or if he has an actual oral motor delay. He's very vocal but most of his sounds are gut sounds and not made with the mouth.

She recommended in the meantime I get some blow toys (whistles, etc) to have him practice the tongue thrust thing with his mouth. I guess what is baffling to her though is that he takes the straw with no hesitation or issues so she thinks he actaully is making the motions.

Can anyone share any other "homework" that your therapist has you do in order to enhance the oral motor skills? I'm just looking for new ideas for us to work on.

Thanks!

Re: Speech Therapy Moms

I am totally looking for do an early intervention on my son also-
Did your ped recommend it?
My dr wants to wait till ds's are 2 however they will be in Aug and i want to set it up asap.
The only advice i have is i bought that
"your baby can read " dvd's and i put them in there seat and it does help them try to talk. Sorry i dont have more info.... I think im a few steps behind you but will hopefully be able to get ds's into a program soon

Re: Speech Therapy Moms

I'm a SLP and would say that your DC's plan really should be individualized. That being said, be sure you know the research on the effectiveness of oral motor interventions. I have found that many therapists "sell" it but there isn't much evidence to back it up and the child's progress doesn't come along like everyone wanted it to. There are some oral motor interventions with research to back them. Some oral motor work can be good for hyper or hypo sensitivities or awareness. Oral motor activities for non-speech activities don't necessarily improve functioning for speech activities...the movements are very different. Also, phonological processing disorders can look like apraxia at a very young age. PROMPT can help apraxia but not the linguistically-based phonological processing-speech problems.

Re: Speech Therapy Moms

Re: Speech Therapy Moms

Re: Speech Therapy Moms

Posted by lbelle821

Posted by sasha96

I'm a SLP and would say that your DC's plan really should be individualized. That being said, be sure you know the research on the effectiveness of oral motor interventions. I have found that many therapists "sell" it but there isn't much evidence to back it up and the child's progress doesn't come along like everyone wanted it to. There are some oral motor interventions with research to back them. Some oral motor work can be good for hyper or hypo sensitivities or awareness. Oral motor activities for non-speech activities don't necessarily improve functioning for speech activities...the movements are very different. Also, phonological processing disorders can look like apraxia at a very young age. PROMPT can help apraxia but not the linguistically-based phonological processing-speech problems.

thanks so much for the input --- I think I might need a dictionary to interpret though

I don't know what you mean by hyper or hypo sesitivities or awareness...I'll look that up.

I assume when you say non-speech activities you're taking about are things like the straw and the whistle?

She did mention apraxia in conversation but told me not to look it up on the internet because she knows I'll freak out. She doesn't believe at this point that is the issue and can't really tell until she gets a speech therapist in to see him.

Re: Speech Therapy Moms

DD does work for oral motor issues with her therapist. Some things include: using a kazoo, using a recorder - two different muscles make each of those sounds I guess. She actually has DD use the kazoo while she's holding it, then slowly pulls it out of her mouth asking her to make the same sound (so they practice lip rounding), she takes a few toungue depressers taped together and has DD bite down on the middle of it. She also uses chewy tubes, and these little sticks with pink foam on the end that she rubs in her cheeks to "wake up" her mouth. HTH!

Re: Speech Therapy Moms

We have some of the same issues.

Noah has a severe speech delay. He has sounds but all gutteral like you have described. We are slowing starting to get some aproximations of words, but he will sya it once and lose it completly.

Anyway, some of the stuff we do at home are the blow toys as well, and those giant plastic microphones that you can get at the dollar store/party store.

We read books that have repetative sounds...good for attending skills as well as speech.

We also make learning a sound fun. We will color , paint and make a collage of a word ( to get a sound out of it)... We find if he is proud of something he did he will do something for us in return ( say a word) .

We also just repeat and sound out EVERYTHING , all day long. It becomes like second nature.

Lots of luck to you!

Re: Speech Therapy Moms

Re: Speech Therapy Moms

thanks everyone...i'm going to look for some of this stuff.

Donna, a silly question, what do you do with the giant microphone?

Re: Speech Therapy Moms

Posted by lbelle821

thanks everyone...i'm going to look for some of this stuff.

Donna, a silly question, what do you do with the giant microphone?