Speech & Language Therapy

There are lots of ways to aid your child's speech and language whilst at home. Activities such as reading books, singing nursery rhymes and playing games can help to develop your child's speaking, listening and understanding skills.

You could also:

Story Starters: Begin a story and have each child add a sentence. This encourages creativity, vocabulary use and sentence formation.

Word Bingo: Create Bingo cards with words instead of numbers. Call out definitions, synonyms, or antonyms and have the children identify the corresponding word on their cards.

Charades: Encourage non-verbal communication by acting out words or phrases. This game helps with expressive language and understanding non-verbal cues.

Guess the Object: Place an object in a bag and have your child feel it without looking. They describe the object using adjectives and try to guess what it is.

Category Games: Name a category (e.g., animals, fruits, colours) and have your child take turns naming items within that category, promoting vocabulary and categorisation skills.

Rhyme Time: Choose a word and take turns coming up with words that rhyme. This helps with phonemic awareness and word recognition.

Simon Says: Play Simon Says using complex instructions to encourage listening skills and following directions.

20 Questions: One person thinks of an object, and others have to guess what it is by asking yes/no questions. This encourages asking questions and descriptive language.

Scavenger Hunt: Give your child a list of items to find and have them describe each item when they find it.

Role-Playing: Use scenarios or puppets to encourage your child to engage in conversation, enabling them to practice turn-taking, forming questions, and responding appropriately.

​Oak National Academy - The Oak National Academy has an area dedicated to children with addition needs - this has a section that includes speech and language development. 

Bedfordshire's NHS Speech & Language website - This website has lots of advice, information and resources for children aged 2 - 16. It has lots of useful resources available to download including things like a now and next board, speech sound development wheel.

Bedfordshire's NHS Speech & Language Facebook page  - this page has a weekly focus, covering a range of speech, language and communication related topics. They post daily tips and advice linked to the different elements within speech, language and communication. 

The Communication Trust - This website has lots of different ideas and also some advice on the different areas of speech and language.