Speech & Language Development

These are skills we work on in speech therapy:

• 
  Receptive Language (understanding of language) including:
  • spatial vocabulary- next to/beside, under, above, below
  • temporal words- first, next, last, before/after
  • qualitative concepts- large/small, hot/cold, etc.
• follow directions (simple and multi-step)
• answer questions (e.g. who, what, where, when, why, how, how many), and
• demonstrate understanding of words and concepts while listening and speaking.

• Expressive Language (use of language) including:
  • articles (a, the, an) and demonstratives (this, that, then)
  • pronouns - I, he, she, his, her, they, etc. 
  • auxiliary verbs - is, are (The boy is playing a game of basketball) 
  • verb tense -
  • present tense (run, skip, hop, jump, dance, drive)
  • third person singular (The boy runs and jumps on the playground)
  • regular past tense (The boy jumped on the playground)
  • irregular past tense (The boy ran on the playground)
  • future tense (The boy will run on the playground)
  • conjunctions (and, or, but, etc.)
• forming complex and compound, detailed sentences
• sequencing a story (first, next, last) and retelling a story/event (neither too little details or too many thoughts/run on sentences).

• Speech Production Skills (articulation) & fluency including:
•  using clear, intelligible, fluent speech for communication with others in all environments
• hearing and saying sounds in all word positions (initial, medial, final) and at all levels (isolation, syllables, words, phrases, sentences, conversation)
• elimination of phonological patterns/errors such as: 
  • syllable reduction (says "bu-fly" for "butterfly")
  • fronting (says "tat" for "cat")
  • stopping (says "duice" for "juice")
  • final consonant deletion (says "wall" for "walk")
  • voicing (says "ban" for "pan")
  • devoicing (says "mut" for "mud")
  • cluster reduction (says "sool" for "school")
  • gliding (says "weaf" for "leaf", says "wun" for "run")

• Phonological Awareness Skills including:
• identification of words, syllables, and sounds in spoken language (e.g. "What is the first sound you hear in the word 'hat'? - h)
• manipulation of words, syllables and sounds in spoken language (e.g. change the word "hat" to "cat")
• blending of sounds within words (h-a-t= hat)
• segmenting/separating sounds within words (hat = h-a-t)
• identification/production of rhyming words (e.g. do the following words rhyme? hat- head, hat- bat)

Please use the following links for further information on speech and language development:

http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Parent-Stim-Activities.htm

https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/

http://www.speech-language-development.com/

http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/not-talk.html

http://www.parentcenterhub.org/speechlanguage/