Do you have a problem understanding what your kid is stating? Is your child getting overlooked in school or at the playground because other children can not understand him? If so, then you may want to consider getting help from a speech therapist. Why is this so?
Now it can be frustrating for both you and your child if you are finding it difficult to understand one another. Parents need to ask numerous questions to clarify, and this only weakens a child’s confidence to express themselves. In many cases, children with speech problems with no treatment grow up socially withdrawn and uncomfortable expressing themselves to others.
Consider the common reasons why some children experience difficulty with speech:
Muscle weakness
Various muscles are included when producing speech, and often the inability to move these muscles might cause speech to be unclear. For instance, your child might not have the ability to lift the tip of his tongue to produce the ‘th’ sound. In this case, speech therapy in Sydney is essential for mitigating such difficulties.
Lack of Control and Coordination
The problem might not be muscle weakness, but rather, your child has difficulties collaborating the movements. This is similar to individuals who are not able to dance. There is absolutely nothing wrong with their legs, but they dance ‘with two left feet’.
By the same logic, your child may be able to state ‘l’ in ‘pigeon’ but unable to pronounce ‘l’ in “glimmer “. Alternatively, your child may say ‘dog’ one minute and ‘yog’ the next. You get the idea.
Phonological problems
Speech development in children is more than just recognising different sounds. There is also the physical element of producing speech. For example, if a child is used to hearing people speak in Mandarin, then he or she might pronounce dome as ‘dough’ or say ‘hay’ instead of ‘high’.
It is not to say that your child is unable to produce the correct sounds, but rather, there are no such sounds in Mandarin. As a result, children may find it challenging to grasp the idea that there are such sounds in the English language. This is often the case for immigrant children who were not born and raised as native English speakers.
Why Speech Therapy is essential
A speech therapist is a professional who is specially trained to identify and treat speech issues in kids (and grownups). Speech treatment is essential since it accomplishes the following:
- Speech therapy improves the quality of life for children with speech problems.
- Speech problems can hamper a child’s proper development and ability to learn new ideas.
- Speech therapy for children breaks the vicious circle of unclear speech, which prompts children to shy away from conversations.
- When your kid has unclear speech, this might result in less interaction with other kids, which only worsens the problem due to lack of practice. Even adults participate in speech therapy classes for this factor alone.
So there you have it — an overview on how speech therapy is essential for children with speech problems. As you may have already realised, difficulties with speech can be a significant problem for children and one that warrants the attention of