Speech Therapy
7 Speech Therapy Strategies You Can Use at Home
The most powerful speech therapy doesn't happen in a clinic — it happens in the hundreds of small exchanges you already have with your child every day. These are the strategies our speech pathologists teach parents first, because they compound: a few seconds each, dozens of times a day.
1. Get face to face
Down on the floor, eye level. Children learn sounds by watching mouths, and they communicate more with someone who's clearly available. Half of home speech therapy is positioning.
2. Follow their lead
Talk about what your child is already looking at, doing or holding. Language sticks when it lands on existing attention. If they're obsessed with the garbage truck, the garbage truck is today's curriculum.
3. Model, don't test
Swap "What's this? What colour is it? Can you say ball?" for simply naming and describing: "A ball! A big red ball. Roll the ball." Questions demand performance; models invite imitation. Aim for four comments for every question.
4. Expand by one
Whatever your child says, hand it back with one word added. "Car" → "Fast car!" "Daddy go" → "Daddy's going to work." You're showing the next rung of the ladder, exactly one step above where they are.
5. Master the pause
After you say something, wait. Count five slow seconds in your head. That silence feels endless to adults and is precisely the processing time many children need to formulate a response. Most parents wait less than one second — the pause is genuinely the hardest strategy on this list.
6. Sabotage, playfully
Put the biscuits in sight but out of reach. Hand over the bubbles with the lid on tight. "Forget" their shoes at the door. Gentle, playful obstacles create real reasons to communicate — far more motivating than drills.
7. Read the same books, badly
Repetition is a feature, not a bug: familiar books let your child predict, fill in words and eventually "read" to you. Pause before the rhyme, let them finish the line, and don't rush the pages they love.
When home strategies aren't enough
If your child's speech is well behind their peers, hard for strangers to understand past age four, or frustration is boiling over into behaviour — pair these strategies with a proper assessment. Home practice works best when a speech pathologist has mapped exactly what to target.
Ready to take the next step?
Our Speech Therapy team works with children and adults across Sydney and via telehealth. During business hours we typically respond within 15 minutes.
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