In this episode, Carrie shares the story of a sweet 5-year-old boy named Ahmad (name changed for privacy) and his journey with childhood apraxia of speech. From using AAC to working through early speech sounds, Carrie walks through the specific framework and strategies that helped Ahmad go from frustration to finding his voice.

If you’re working with a child who struggles to speak but clearly has a lot to say, this one’s for you.

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

Carrie kicks off the episode by explaining what childhood apraxia of speech is—a motor speech disorder where the brain knows what it wants to say, but the message doesn’t make it clearly to the mouth. Ahmad had CAS along with other developmental and medical challenges, which made early intervention even more important. Carrie talks about what apraxia can look like in a preschooler and how it can affect speech production in unpredictable ways.

Learn more about Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Carrie walks through how she applied the Speech and Language Kids Framework to Ahmad’s case. The first step? Identifying the areas of communication that needed the most support. For Ahmad, that meant:

From there, she explains how they chose two primary therapy pathways:

Grab the SLK Therapy Framework

Ahmad’s story isn’t just about the therapy—it’s about the people involved, too. Carrie shares how she encountered resistance from Ahmad’s mom about using AAC, particularly because of concerns around manipulation and behavior due to reactive attachment disorder.

Instead of pushing her agenda, Carrie modeled collaboration by calling a team meeting. Together with a behavior specialist and the family, they developed a plan: Ahmad could use the AAC device, but would also be encouraged to attempt speech with each use. This balanced approach honored everyone’s concerns while still supporting Ahmad’s communication.

Related Resource

With AAC in place, Carrie focused on Ahmad’s expressive speech. She used a motor speech approach, starting with simple word shapes like consonant-vowel (CV) and vowel-consonant (VC) patterns. Key strategies included:

Try the Motor Speech Therapy Plan

Carrie describes how she used brief, frequent practice opportunities—like greeting Ahmad at the classroom door and reviewing his core words by his backpack. These mini-sessions, combined with play-based speech therapy and consistent home carryover, helped Ahmad make meaningful progress.

Key Tip: Kids with apraxia benefit from distributed practice—short bursts of practice multiple times a day are more effective than one long session.

If you’re working with preschoolers with CAS or complex needs, you’ll find loads of practical gems in this episode.

SLK Therapy Framework

Motor Speech Therapy Plan in the Hub

AAC Overview for SLPs and Parents

Apraxia-KIDS.org

Ready for more? Join the next live podcast recording inside The Hub!

The post Ahmad’s Story – Childhood Apraxia of Speech and the Motor Speech Pathway appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

How do you know where to start with a preschooler who’s hard to understand? In today’s episode, I’m walking you through a real-life case study of a sweet little one (we’ll call her Arianna) who had significant speech and language challenges. I’ll share the exact process I used to figure out what to target first and how I built a therapy plan that made meaningful progress possible—even with limited time and resources.

This episode is perfect for SLPs, teachers, and parents working with preschoolers who have unclear speech, multiple delays, or difficulty getting their message across.

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

We started by figuring out which areas of communication were causing the most trouble. For Arianna, that meant:

Tip: Narrow down to the areas that will give you the most bang for your buck—the ones that will make everything else easier once they improve.

SLK Screening Checklist (Free inside the Hub!)

Once we knew her biggest challenges, we used SLK’s progress monitoring checklists to pinpoint where she was breaking down:

These checklists helped us move from a broad area (like “speech”) to the exact patterns to target in therapy.

Progress Monitoring Tools

We mapped Arianna’s goals onto SLK’s structured therapy pathways:

This helped create a clear, step-by-step plan that fit her level and needs.

From there, we picked specific therapy goals:

These were the skills that would have the biggest immediate impact on her intelligibility and communication success.

Since Arianna was just 4 years old, we kept our sessions fun and flexible:

We also collaborated with her teacher and sent simple homework activities home for carryover.

In the second half of the episode, we tackled listener questions about similar preschoolers:

I shared how the same SLK framework helps guide those decisions so you can confidently know what to target first.

Join the Speech and Language Kids Hub – Free & Paid Plans

SLK Screening Checklist

SLK Progress Monitoring Tools

Therapy Pathways & Materials ($25/month or $250/year)

The post Arianna’s Story: Preschool Speech and Language appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

Are you looking for the simplest, most effective way to teach communication skills to children and teens?

Well, search no farther!

I’m speech-language pathologist Carrie Clark and in today’s episode of The Speech and Language Kids Podcast, we’re diving into exactly how to make the most of virtual speech sessions so we can work on closing these gaps, one child at a time.

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

To Access the Specific Progress Monitoring Tools, Click Here!

Articulation – Individuals with articulation challenges have difficulty with specific speech sounds, producing them incorrectly or with noticeable distortions. Choose the articulation pathway for traditional sound-by-sound therapy that targets one speech sound at a time.

Phonology – Individuals with phonological challenges demonstrate consistent patterns of speech errors, such as omitting sounds at the beginning or end of words or struggling with whole categories of sounds (e.g., back sounds like /k/ and /g/). Choose the phonology pathway to teach sound patterns and eliminate phonological processes such as fronting, stopping, final consonant deletion, etc.

Motor Speech – Individuals with motor speech difficulties have inconsistent speech errors, struggle more with longer words, appear to have difficulty physically producing speech sounds, and may sound choppy and robotic. Choose the motor speech pathway to treat motor-based speech disorders, such as apraxia, by teaching specific word structures, such as CV, VC, CVC, and multisyllabic words.

Mumbling Pathway – These individuals may speak too quickly, too quietly, slurs their words, or are able to produce sounds correctly in isolation but become harder to understand in conversation. Choose this pathway for a structured approach to teaching over-articulation and increasing awareness of when they are not understood.

To access these Therapy Pathways and the corresponding Therapy Plans, click here!

Following Directions Pathway

Individuals with following directions challenges have difficulty understanding and carrying out one-step or multi-step instructions. They may become easily distracted when given directions or struggle to process spoken information. Choose this pathway to target skills like following verbal and written directions, improving attention to instructions, and processing spoken language efficiently.

Asking and Answering Questions Pathway

These individuals have difficulty responding to basic WH-questions (who, what, where, etc.), struggle to ask meaningful questions, or have trouble answering questions about something they just heard. Choose this pathway to build skills in answering WH-questions, formulating clear and relevant questions, and improving comprehension through question-based interactions.

Sequencing & Retelling Pathway

Individuals with sequencing and retelling challenges have difficulty organizing events or stories in logical order. They may start retellings in the middle without context, leave out key details, or struggle to recall events accurately. Choose this pathway to focus on skills like sequencing steps, retelling stories with key details, and structuring a story clearly.

Grammar & Sentence Complexity Pathway

Individuals with grammar and sentence complexity challenges have speech that contains frequent grammar errors, sounds choppy and incomplete, or relies on shorter or simpler sentences than expected for their age. Choose this pathway to strengthen grammar use, expand sentence length and complexity, and improve overall sentence structure.

Foundations for Literacy Pathway

Individuals with literacy challenges have difficulty with early reading skills, such as phonological awareness, understanding written texts, or developing reading fluency and comprehension. Choose this pathway to build phonological awareness, strengthen early literacy skills, and improve reading comprehension and fluency.

Abstract Language Pathway

Individuals with abstract language challenges struggle to understand figurative language, such as idioms, sarcasm, and metaphors, or have difficulty making inferences from conversations and texts. Choose this pathway to develop skills in understanding and using figurative language, interpreting implied meanings, and making logical inferences.

Vocabulary Pathway

Individuals with vocabulary challenges have difficulty understanding and using new words, rely on vague or imprecise language, or struggle with remembering and using the correct words. Choose this pathway to enhance word knowledge, improve word retrieval, and build precise and meaningful vocabulary use.

To access these Therapy Pathways and the corresponding Therapy Plans, click here!

Social Awareness and Interaction Pathway

Individuals with social awareness and interaction challenges have difficulty responding to others, understanding different perspectives, and engaging appropriately in social situations. Choose this pathway to build skills responding to others, joint attention, turn taking, topic maintenance, and perspective taking.

Emotional Regulation & Self-Advocacy Pathway

Individuals with emotional regulation and self-advocacy challenges have difficulty expressing their needs, managing emotions, and coping with social stressors. They may struggle to communicate boundaries or self-regulate in overwhelming situations. Choose this pathway to develop skills in emotional awareness, self-advocacy, coping strategies, and effective self-expression.

Conversational Skills Pathway

Individuals with conversational skills challenges have difficulty initiating, maintaining, and appropriately ending conversations. They may struggle to take turns, stay on topic, or understand conversational rules. Choose this pathway to improve an individual’s ability to initiate conversations, keep them going, and adapt them to a variety of situations.

Abstract Language Pathway

Individuals with abstract language challenges struggle to understand figurative language, sarcasm, idioms, and implied meanings in conversations. They may take things literally or have difficulty making inferences. Choose this pathway to strengthen skills in interpreting figurative language, understanding implied messages, and making logical inferences in conversations.

Selective Mutism Pathway

Individuals with selective mutism can speak in some situations but experience anxiety or difficulty speaking in specific social settings (such as speaking freely at home but remaining silent at school). Choose this pathway to build confidence in verbal communication, reduce anxiety around speaking, and support gradual exposure to new speaking environments.

To access these Therapy Pathways and the corresponding Therapy Plans, click here!

Foundations for Fluency Pathway

Individuals with fluency challenges may struggle with maintaining smooth, natural speech flow. They may benefit from strategies that support breath control, emotional regulation, and confidence in speaking. Choose this pathway to work on coordinating breathing with speech, increasing awareness of stuttering, and dealing with negative emotions or reactions related to stuttering.

Stuttering Pathway

Individuals with stuttering challenges experience interruptions in speech, such as repetitions, prolongations, or blocks. They may feel frustrated or anxious about speaking. Choose this pathway to develop structured strategies for smoother, more confident communication and to reduce tension associated with stuttering.

Cluttering Pathway

Individuals with cluttering challenges speak too quickly, in a disorganized way, or with reduced clarity, making their speech difficult to understand. They may struggle with self-monitoring and pacing their speech. Choose this pathway to improve speech clarity, regulate speaking rate, and enhance overall communication effectiveness.

Word Finding/Word Retrieval Pathway

Individuals with word finding challenges struggle to retrieve the right words, leading to frequent hesitations, pauses, or substitutions in conversation. Choose this pathway to strengthen word retrieval skills, reduce speaking delays, and increase ease and confidence in communication.

To access these Therapy Pathways and the corresponding Therapy Plans, click here!

Early Interactions Pathway

Individuals with early interaction challenges may need support with basic social engagement, responding to their name, following simple directions, and participating in early social routines. Choose this pathway to build foundational communication skills, increase social engagement, and support early language development.

Analytic Language Processors (ALP) Pathway

Individuals who are analytic language processors learn language through individual words and phrases. They may need help using words and short phrases effectively across different situations. Choose this pathway to teach a child to use short words for functional communication, build up their vocabulary, and begin to expand their utterance length to longer phrases.

Gestalt Language Processors (GLP) Pathway

Individuals who are gestalt language processors learn language through echolalia, scripts, or repeating chunks of language. They may need structured support in moving toward self-generated speech. Choose this pathway to guide the progression from echolalia to meaningful, spontaneous language use.

Augmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC) Pathway

Individuals who use AAC (such as picture boards, speech-generating devices, or gestures) may need support in developing functional and meaningful communication. Others may struggle with speech intelligibility and need alternative ways to express themselves without frustration. Choose this pathway to help a child learn to communicate using alternative means, such as pictures, sign language, or communication devices.

To access these Therapy Pathways and the corresponding Therapy Plans, click here

Foundations of Healthy Voice Use Pathway

Individuals with challenges in healthy voice use may experience vocal strain, fatigue, or difficulty maintaining a strong and clear voice. They may need to improve vocal hygiene, breath support, or voice care habits. Choose this pathway to build healthy vocal habits, reduce strain, and strengthen breath support for better voice production.

Voice Pathway

Individuals with voice challenges may struggle with vocal quality due to strain, tension, or inefficient voice use. Their voice may sound hoarse, breathy, or weak. Choose this pathway to improve vocal quality, develop better vocal control, and reduce strain or tension in speech.

Resonance Pathway

Individuals with resonance challenges may experience hypernasality, nasal emission, or other resonance differences that impact speech clarity. Choose this pathway to improve speech resonance, enhance clarity, and support balanced vocal tone.

Prosody Pathway

Individuals with prosody challenges may have difficulty with pitch, volume, or speech rate, leading to speech that sounds monotone, robotic, or unnatural. Choose this pathway to develop expressive, natural speech patterns by improving pitch variation, volume control, and pacing.

To access these Therapy Pathways and the corresponding Therapy Plans, click here!

The post Speech/Language Therapy 101: Back to Basics for SLPs and Caregivers appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

It’s no secret that teletherapy speech/language therapy services soared during the pandemic.

Telepractice use among SLPs jumped from just 3.9% pre-pandemic to 88% by 2021. (source)

And while teletherapy services are not quite as prevalent now as they were at the height of the pandemic, we’re still seeing many turn to teletherapy for its convenience and accessibility.

And for good reason!

We’re also seeing a huge increase in the number of children needing services.

One analysis found a 110% increase in speech disorder diagnoses in children aged 0-12 years in 2022 compared to the pre-pandemic rates. (source)

When families and schools are struggling to find enough local SLPs to serve the needs, teletherapy is available to serve the gaps.

I’m speech-language pathologist Carrie Clark and in today’s episode of The Speech and Language Kids Podcast, we’re diving into exactly how to make the most of virtual speech sessions so we can work on closing these gaps, one child at a time.

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

Seeing you once per week on a screen ain’t gonna cut it!

(Sorry, midwest roots coming out there)

The best therapy happens as part of a cohesive whole-team appraoch.

Meet with parents, caregivers, teachers, educators, other therapists and stay in communication about the child’s progress.

Your time during therapy sessions should be spent on figuring out which strategies work for that client.

If possible, spend your sessions coaching and training the adults on how to implement the strategies all day long.

If not, make sure you communicate!

Therapy will be more effective if you’re following a systematic approach instead of just finding cutesy one-off activities that work well on teletherapy.

Teletherapists using The Speech and Language Kids Framework use our pathways (larger plans for specific challenges) and our therapy plans (step-by-step workbooks for each skill).

Share the workbooks with the “screenshare” tool and some platforms will even let you write on the worksheets.

This forms the “drill” portion of your session where you can find the right strategies.

Ok that one fell apart a bit, but you get what I’m saying.

Keep your sessions fun and fresh by switching up your reinforcers (NOT your therapy materials).

After you’ve introduced the skill, you can make the practice more fun by introducing reinforcers that are related to each client’s interests:

Keeping teletherapy fun and fresh doesn’t have to mean loads of time planning and prepping for you!

Our therapy plans and the step-by-step workbooks are perfect for teletherapy!

Available with the Full, Paid Hub Membership here

The post The Teletherapy Playbook: Proven Strategies for Faster Progress in Virtual Speech Sessions appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

Today we’re talking about “lisps”.

But many professionals are moving away from using the term lisp because it often carries a negative or stigmatizing connotation, especially outside of clinical contexts.

Instead, we’re focusing on describing speech patterns more precisely using phonetic terms. For example:

I’m speech-language pathologist Carrie Clark and in today’s episode of The Speech and Language Kids Podcast, I’ll going to give you a very clear Therapy Pathway that will lay out how to treat dentalized or lateralized productions of sibilants.

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

Here’s the plan for how to treat these speech sounds:

We have therapy materials, training videos, and full therapy plans inside The Hub.

Get easy-to-follow plans that work for real kids in real sessions.

Available with the Full, Paid Hub Membership here.

The post A Therapy Pathway for Frontal and Lateral Speech Errors (aka “Lisps”) appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

You spend all evening scouring the internet for the perfect activity for little Timmy.

You print.

You cut.

You laminate.

You velcro.

He’s gonna love it.

And then…

…it lasts all of two seconds and then he’s bored.

I’m speech-language pathologist Carrie Clark and in today’s episode of The Speech and Language Kids Podcast, we’ll be answering the question of “are one-off activities really working, or are they just filling time?” Plus, I’ll show you how you the power of having a start-to-finish plan that actually moves children toward success.

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

Why do we love one-off activities so much?

Well…

But the downsides of one-off activities are numerous:

So what’s the opposite of throwing together a bunch of one-off activities?

A structured plan that takes you from introducing a skill to mastery in a systematic way.

Think back to grad school, remember the Van Riper approach?

First we work on sounds in isolation, then syllables, then words, etc. Remember?

Imagine having a systematic plan like that for EVERY skill you teach!

And then imagine having a systematic plan for which skills to teach in the first place!

Start-to-finish plans are:

Think of this as two types of plans:

A good therapy plan will include both of these. Think of them as the forest, and the trees. The pathway is made up of a whole bunch of therapy plan modules.

For example, a therapy pathway for a child who stutters may include coordinating their breathing, dealing with negative emotions, and teaching them stuttering modification strategies.

That’s the Pathway.

And then there will be an individual therapy plan for each of those skills that breaks them down into manageable steps.

Take a look at where the individual is now.

How are they communicating?

Where are they struggling?

What are the individual skills that they would need to learn to overcome that particular challenge?

Then, we map out the skills that they will need to get there.

Once you know what skills they need to acquire, you can work on planning out how you’ll teach each individual skill.

These will become your individual therapy plans.

Again, think about where they are now with that skill and where you want them to be.

Then, create a step-by-step plan that will walk them through learning the skill.

You can…

Oh!

I’m so glad you asked!

Why am I so passionate about this?

Because this is what I’m spending all of my time on right now.

I’m building out the therapy plans for you so you don’t have to spend your free time coming up with structured plans.

And I’ll be working on the Pathways next!

All of our Therapy Plans are available inside the Full Hub Membership.

The post From Chaos to Clarity: Why One-Off Activities Are Failing Your Therapy Sessions appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

Well, the flu has hit my house!

Instead of a full podcast episode today, I’m giving you a quick update about our new progress monitoring tools located inside The Speech and Language Kids Hub.

Here’s how it works:

Have everyone on the individual’s team fill out this screening checklist (parents, caregivers, teachers, therapists, SLP, etc.).

Look at the areas that came up as a concern on the screening checklist. Have the team members fill out the specific progress monitoring tool for each of those areas.

This will give you a better idea of what skills need to be addressed. You can also use your formal assessment/evaluation results to fill these out.

Use the results of the individual progress monitoring tools to fill out the Therapy Roadmap. This will include all of the skills that the individual needs support with. Share this with everyone on the team!

Now use your Therapy Roadmap to pick out specific skills/therapy plans that will best support the areas of need for that individual. Here’s how therapy works:

The screener checklist, progress monitoring tools, and the therapy roadmap are all available on our Freebies Plan to The Speech and Language Kids Hub.

In order to access the Therapy Plans, you’ll need a Full, Paid Hub Membership.

Click Here to Choose your Membership Level and Get Started!

The post Speech/Language Progress Monitoring Tools Now Available…Free! appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

One of the top questions I get is about whether or not a child should be saying certain speech sounds.

Let me tell you, there is a WIDE range of normal when it comes to speech sound acquisition.

But in general, we know that certain sounds (like /b/ and /m/) come in early…

…and other sounds (like /r/ and /l/) come in later.

And knowing those milestones can help us decide which children need speech therapy, and which can wait it out.

I’m speech-language pathologist Carrie Clark and in today’s episode of The Speech and Language Kids Podcast, I’ll be telling you what ages certain sounds should come in by and I’ll be giving you a Therapy Roadmap for how to help them if they’re not.

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

But before we get to the roadmap, let’s answer the question that everyone is asking:

When should children be able to say each speech sound?

I’ve got it all laid out for you right here:

The following sound chart represent the age of acquisition for the English speech sounds.  The age below indicates that 90% of children are saying this sound consistently when they turn that age.  For example, for the /b/ sound, 90% of children are able to produce the /b/ sound correctly in everyday speech by their third birthday.

Click here to view the research behind this speech sound age chart.

/b/ Sound…………………….3 years

/n/ Sound…………………….3 years

/m/ Sound……………………3 years

/p/ Sound…………………….3 years

/h/ Sound……………………3 years

/w/ Sound…………………….3 years

/d/ Sound……………………..3 years

/g/ Sound (as in “go”)…….4 years

/k/ Sound………………………..4 years

/f/ Sound………………………….4 years

/t/ Sound………………………….4 years

“ng” Sound (as in, “ring”)……4 years

“y” Sound (as in, “yum”)……..4 years

/v/ Sound………………………….5 years

“j” Sound (as in, “jam”)……….5 years

/s/ Sound………………………….5 years

“ch” Sound…………………………..5 years

/l/ Sound…………………………….5 years

“sh” Sound…………………………..5 years

/z/ Sound …………………………..5 years

/r/ Sound……………………………6 years

Voiced “th” (“they”)……………..6 years

Soft “j” (“beige”)………………….6 years

Voiceless “th” (“thumb”)……….7 years

* Keep in mind, most state education departments have their own chart of when children in the public schools qualify for services based on sound.  These ages may be different than the research presented here.

Ok wait!

Before you post a comment telling me I’m wrong….

There is a wide range of “normal”.

Many children acquire these sounds earlier or even later than these ages!

Different research studies put these ages at different levels.

This was a study done in 2020 but other studies have reported different findings.

That’s because all children acquire sounds differently.

Instead of getting hung up on the details…

….look for patterns.

Is the child missing MANY of these sounds?

Then there may be a problem.

If the child is only slightly behind these ages, then we may not need to worry too much.

A speech-language pathologist can do a full evaluation to see if there are enough red flags for us to feel that therapy is warranted.

So what do we do if we feel a child needs help with pronouncing speech sounds?

We follow the roadmap.

The first step of the roadmap is picking which road you want to follow first.

There’s no wrong answer here, just go with the one that makes the most sense right now.

(And revise your path later if they’re not making progress.)

Choose a Road:

Instead of working on specific sounds, you’ll be working on specific word structures, like:

Choose one structure to practice at a time.

When they can do those words, add a sound or add a new structure with sounds they can already say.

Decide if you’ll work on one phonological process at a time or if you’ll use a Cycles Approach.

Target that phonological process through these steps:

Choose a sound to teach.

Target that sound through these steps:

Teach the child how to overexaggerate their sounds and slow down.

Teach over-articulation through these steps:

We have step-by-step therapy plans that will take you from start to finish on each of these skills.

Get easy-to-follow plans that work for real kids in real sessions.

Available with the Full, Paid Hub Membership here.

The post When Should Children be Able to Say Certain Sounds? (And How Can We Help?) appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

On today’s episode of the Speech and Language Kids Podcast, I’m taking you inside our members-only area!

Listen in as we run one of our monthly planning calls.

We’re helping members build sessions and plan a full month of therapy at once.

Join us as we combine the magic of our therapy plans with our session builder tools to create some AMAZING session ideas!

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

Forget one-off activities, our full treatment guides will walk you through therapy from start to finish.

The 5-Step Process:

These our the AI-powered bots that we’ve built to make your job SO much easier!

Simply answer a few questions about what you’re looking for and our generators will create custom materials that are tailored to what your students need to work on and what they’re interested in.

Here are the tools we have right now:

All of these amazing resources (along with our planning calls) are located inside The Speech and Language Kids Hub!

Join today, free trials are available!

The post Listen in on our Live Speech Therapy Planning Call appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

“My child isn’t talking yet but he can sing songs or repeat lines/scripts from movies.”

Or…

“My child simply repeats what everyone else says.”

These are the kinds of things I hear from parents of children who are learning language….

….differently.

See, it turns out there are two main ways that children learn language.

Some children learn language one word at a time.

Other children, learn language in chunks by repeating whole sentences or scripts that they hear elsewhere.

These children are called Gestalt Language Processors.

I’m speech-language pathologist Carrie Clark and on today’s episode of The Speech and Language Kids Podcast, I’m going to share my top 6 steps for helping those gestalt language processors find their voice.

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

Children who learn language in chunks or scripts known as “gestalts”.

They may repeat entire phrases, sentences, or scripts that they have heard from other places.

These still have meaning to them but it may not be the same meaning as the specific words would lead you to believe.

Here’s where it gets tricky: if a child isn’t speaking much (or at all), it can be hard to tell which way they are learning language.

Here are some signs you may be working with a GLP (and therefore want to model more language chunks instead of single words):

Often the gestalts that children are saying are trying to convey something other than what the words literally mean.

For example, a child who says “do you wanna build a snowman” may not be trying to tell us about snowmen at all.

Maybe they are remembering how they saw that movie with their grandma and they want to talk about her instead.

Pay attention to the things the child is saying and try to guess what the actual meaning may be.

Even if you’re not sure, respond anyway!

These scripts are communication and we need to respond to the child to let them know we understand that they are trying to connect with us.

Therapy for this group is not drill and practice.

It’s about letting the child lead the play or interaction and being there to model language along the way.

Imitate what the child does and says.

Respond to their communications even if you don’t understand.

GLPs grab chunks of language by listening for pauses on either end.

Model simple sentences with silence on either end, such as…

silence ~ It’s snack time. ~ silence

Have you ever noticed that gestalt language processors (GLPs) tend to pick up more phrases and scripts that are full of excitement or emotion?

This is because they are tuned in to the intonation or the pitch of what is said.

Gestalts that vary from high pitch to low pitch are more fun to say and will stick with our GLPs better than a more monotone one.

Once the child has a large enough repertoire of gestalts, he will start breaking those down into their individual parts or words.

We can help facilitate this by modeling gestalts that are easy to break down into smaller part, and easy to use in a variety of situations.

Try modeling sentences that start like these:

Remember how I said we’d be breaking down those gestalts later?

As the child gets better at using gestalts to communicate, model mixing and matching parts of the gestalts like this:

Shorten Long Gestalts:

Recombine Smaller Chunks to Create New Utterances:

Are you looking to learn more about supporting gestalt language processors?

We have a ton of great resources inside The Hub, including…

…courses

…therapy materials

…handouts

…and more!

Join us inside The Hub to get the best resources on helping the GLP in your life:

The post From Echolalia and Scripting to Original Speech: Top Strategies for Gestalt Language Processors appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.