Speech development issues are prevalent among children with dyslexia or other learning disabilities. You have several options for providing speech therapy at home.

If you’d rather, public schools sometimes provide speech therapy services to homeschooled children. These services can help your child overcome mild difficulties. Unfortunately, the services aren’t always available to homeschoolers. You’ll have to check your state laws to see if your schools provide speech therapy.

If you are a home schooling family, you may be in a quandary about whether to approach the public school for help. If you go to the public school instead of providing speech therapy at home, your child will be put on an IEP (Individual Education Plan). That means the school will be involved in you child’s education. Only you can decide if that is the right choice for you.

You can go to a private therapist as a viable option too. Providing speech therapy at home isn’t for everyone. You have to be pretty precise with your articulation to provide your child with speech therapy at home. However, it isn’t difficult to provide if you have a good, instructional program designed for providing speech therapy at home.

Each of the above is an option, so let’s explore each of the ways you can provide speech therapy.

Public School Speech Therapy Programs

Speech-Language services through the public school are often good because the qualifications for a school SLP (Speeh-Language Pathologist) are usually the same as for private providers. The biggest drawback to using public school services is that your child would have to be identified as needing special education services, would be placed on an IEP, and then–depending upon your school district–you may find yourself mired in special education bureaucracies and inefficiencies.

Some districts are excellent though, so you’d want to find out the special education climate in your district prior to seeking their services. If your child must have speech development therapy and you cannot afford private therapy, then the public school system may be a good choice, as meeting your child’s special needs should be your first priority.

Private Speech Therapy Programs

Private speech-language services are often covered by insurance, so you may want to avail yourself of a private Speech-Language Pathologists’ (SLP) services rather than seeking services from an uncertain public school situation.  The main benefit in using private services is that your child can receive services from a highly qualified individual provider without your child having to be identified as needing special education services (as is required if you go through your public school).  Check with your insurance company to determine if they will cover the SLP services.

If your child is struggling with reading and has speech-language issues, you may want to shop around to find a SLP who will provide the Lindamood-Bell LiPS program.  It is excellent for helping a child who needs both speech-language services and phonemic awareness training.

Speech Therapy at Home – Program Options

Programs for speech therapy at home vary widely in their scope and ease of use. Some speech therapy programs teach a single difficult sound, like the most common sound of /r/, while others (like LiPS) are designed to be comprehensive programs.

In order to provide speech therapy at home, it’s important that you are able to work well with your child. One of the biggest keys for providing speech therapy at home is to work consistently with your child. If you aren’t intimidated by the thought of it, consider the programs listed below. Looking at the variety of programs for providing speech therapy at home may help you decide whether to tackle this area of teaching. 😉

The Lindamood-Bell LiPS program mentioned above can be purchased as a kit with a teacher’s guide and can be used at home. My son received some LiPS services from a private SLP, but in observing her working with him through their one-way observation mirror, I was able to see–it is NOT rocket science! I’m pretty confident most any parent can do fairly well with the program given that you are careful and purposeful about your enunciation of each phoneme.

A great, less expensive option is the HIGHLY RATED hand2mind Mirror My Sounds Phoneme Set. The set includes Letter Sounds Flash Cards, Speech Therapy Materials, Phonics, Phonemic Awareness Manipulatives, and Learning Activities for elementary-aged children. These products are some of my favorites for an inexpensive set of tools to work with your child to improve phonemic awareness.

Speech Therapy for Kids: Speech Sounds and Language Development is “Speech Therapy for Kids is a practical, parent-friendly guide designed to help you understand your child’s speech development and support them at home with confidence. Written by a speech and language therapist, this book helps you recognise the difference between a speech delay and a speech disorder, so you can take the right steps early and avoid unnecessary worry.” It includes Simple, effective games to improve speech clarity and communication.

Speech-Language therapy for issues that are not too complex can be corrected via speech therapy at home. **”Straight Talk” is a program provided through the NATTHAN organization (Nationally Challenged Homeschoolers Association). There are two different programs offered for a very reasonable price. Depending upon your child’s needs, you may want to try one of these speech therapy programs to see if you can help your child at home.

**Bstlearning.com has created an effective and cost efficient program for providing speech therapy at home. Their web-based speech therapy program helps children with pre-reading, articulation, antonyms, synonyms, vocabulary, categories, basic concepts, multiple meaning words, plurals, verbs, possessives and a whole lot more. BSTLearning staff will customize a program for your child, then he or she will be able to access their program daily via the Internet. Bstlearning.com will provide you with detailed progress reports as well as educational material pertinent to your child.

Another option for articulation problems might be the Institute for Excellence in Writing’s “Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization” – We were sent complimentary to us for review. This program is fabulous for children with learning difficulties in many ways. The memory work will help strengthen memory and recall skills for children with memory deficits. The recitation component will help children with articulation practice, as well as memory recall. The main premise behind the program is to give children a ready source for varied and sophisticated usage of language skills in writing. If a child has word usage committed to memory, he can use that information when writing his own original works. Given the program’s format, you’ll find you can substitute any works of poetry in a similar process of memorization and recitation.  For speech-language purposes, you might want to practice with a number of independently selected, short, and easily memorized poems before using those provided with the program.  Whether using your own poems, or those provided with the program, “Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization” seems like a great way to practice and improve speech skills.

Speech Trainer 3D – This program is a great audio-visual learning tool for a child to learn the proper positioning of the tongue, teeth, lips, and breathing for making each sound in the English language.  This is a great phonemic awareness type of app for a child who struggles with reading and has any language-based difficulties. As far as programs for providing speech therapy at home, this app is easy one to use for basic articulation training.

Splingo’s Language Universe – This is a great little app developed by Speech-Language pathologists that your child can use to practice speaking and reading skills.  “An exceptionally high-quality, interactive game designed by Speech and Language Therapists/Pathologists to help children learn listening and language skills, from the authors of the Receptive Language Assessment with Splingo app and the exciting new Pronouns with Splingo app.”

If your child’s problems are complex, you’ve tried one of the at-home programs and it isn’t working, private therapy is generally a great option. This is particularly true if your insurance will cover the therapy. Depending on the depth of your child’s speech-language delays or articulation issues, your child may require private therapy for a relatively long period of time. You can shorten the length of time in therapy by supplementing speech therapy at home. While you won’t want to counter any services provided by your private therapist, working with **Straight Talk at home can provide added progress.

If you need other ideas for speech therapy at home, then there are some great programs, tools, and books for working on specific letter sounds, and other options for working with your child at home. Check out the variety of options available, and start helping your child with this important skill!