Friday, August 23, 2013

Signing Cues and Speech Therapy for Toddlers

Every week Kiddy#1, aged 3½, has a session with her speech therapist helping her to improve her speech.  Yesterday I was invited to sit in with them to see what exactly it is she does every week in order to know what exercises we can do at home to help her.  I was so impressed with what I have seen... amazed actually.  I have noticed at home on a couple of occasions that Kiddy#1 does something with her hands when saying certain words.  We didn't know why she was doing it.  Yesterday I saw that she is actually learning 'signing cues' in her speech therapy class.  For example if she says a word and leaves out certain letters i.e. she might leave out the 's' in the word 'school', there is a certain sign the speech therapist shows her to let her know that she left the 's' out and Kiddy#1 will repeat the word, saying it perfectly.  I am so proud of how far she had come in a month's time.

I have googled speech therapy and signing to find out a little more about it and came across this link:  http://special-ism.com/interested-in-american-sign-language-for-communication/#sthash.WFrPJpuM.UOVD50da.dpbs

I will definitely try and read more about it.  It is so interesting and amazing how much it helps little Kiddy#1 to say words correctly.

Kiddy#1 has to do exercises improving her muscles in her face in order to help her form her words better as it is underdeveloped.  It is simple exercises, but she enjoys it.  After the session yesterday I bought her a couple of items needed to be able to do these at home as well.  Can't wait to start!

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