The benefits of speech therapy for children

One of the central skills of a good case manager is being able to source and coordinate a strong multidisciplinary team for our clients, which clearly involves an understanding of what it is each different therapist can do. Here we look at speech therapy for children in a little bit more detail.

Speech therapy is commonly believed to be a targeted treatment to help children to correctly pronounce their speech sounds, but it also has a number of other important benefits, including:

Articulation

For children who struggle with impaired speech, articulation plays an important role. With speech therapy, children can learn to articulate words properly and improve their confidence and communication skills. A common problem that many children have with articulation is pronouncing the ‘R’ sound, which can occur as a result of a lack of articulatory exercises. Speech therapists can improve children’s articulation using a variety of techniques, including ‘race to 100’ games. In this game, a child is given a board and a dice. When their dice lands on a certain sound, the child is instructed to say it out loud until they say it correctly.

Social skills

Speech therapy can often play an essential role in a child’s social development. It can help to teach children essential social skills such as how to carry a conversation and how to match facial expressions to emotions, but it can also assist them with more abstract skills, such as understanding and identifying nonverbal body language in others and learning how to adapt their communication to cater to different people and environments. This support from a speech therapist can help children build strong connections and long-lasting, fulfilling relationships with others.

Cognitive development

Speech and communication are essential elements of cognitive development. Many of our reasoning and thinking processes involve the use of language and speech, whether it’s through internal thought processes or verbal communication. When most people think to themselves, at some point during the day, they will think in a form of language. As children develop their language and speech abilities, they improve their problem-solving skills and vocabularies to support their cognitive development. A speech therapist can support your child’s cognitive development by teaching them cognitive-based learning strategies to improve their problem solving, reasoning, writing and reading skills.

If you know of a child that might benefit from the support services of a case manager to assist with coordinating a range of therapies, then please get in touch with us at Ainscough Associates.