It is not customary to be surprised to slurp the babble of babies - at times it is even touching. But the “fictitious effects” at an older age are already perplexing. And an adult with speech problems is a sad sight at all. Then you immediately begin to understand that a speech therapist is a very necessary and sought-after profession.
Given the total scale of speech problems, a “speech therapist” situation is not uncommon. For parents of young children, it is especially important to master the skills of correcting the speech of their own baby. After all, not everyone has the opportunity to resort to the help of a specialist. Your main help and instrument will be speech therapy gymnastics for the development of a child’s speech. Now we will explain what it is.
We play not just like that, but with meaning
Speech therapy for the development of speech of a child of 2-3 years is impossible without the interest of the "client". This task is not easy, because it is difficult for the baby to concentrate, and it is not clear what all these tongue twisters or tongue movements are for. Therefore, an adult needs to be inventive and make sure that the baby does not even realize that he has to do a serious job.
If you manage to conduct classes discreetly, during the game, everything will do without whims and tantrums. The material will be learned unobtrusively and quite qualitatively. If the baby categorically refuses to perform the exercises, you should not insist, otherwise you will completely repulse the hunt and it will be even more difficult to return to a useful business.
Speech therapy is not a boring obligation. Her sessions can and should be spontaneous, fun. It is good when the children rejoice and laugh a lot at them. Positive emotions automatically improve the assimilation of the material and encourage the child to return to such interesting rhymes and tongue twisters again.
If something does not work out, do not rush to get upset or, God forbid, scold the baby. It’s better to be interested, why is this tongue in no way obeying, how can we fix this? Give up the role of a serious teacher and try to communicate with the baby on an equal footing.
Tips for Moms and Dads
Let parents not be afraid of the need to practice with their own child. Speech therapy for children - sounds very serious, but in fact there is nothing to worry about. The classical methods here boil down to finger exercises that improve the motor skills of fingers and hands, articulatory gymnastics (that is, exercises for the lips and tongue), the development of hearing through poetic repetitions (logo rhythmics) and the memorization of special rhymes-tongue twisters that improve speech and replenish vocabulary. In addition, breathing exercises (speech therapy) and special massage will benefit.
For those who are determined to engage with their son or daughter on their own, we will give some basic recommendations.
You need to start practicing with just two minutes. Then, over a period of several months, the duration of the sessions increases to 20 minutes. If you manage to interest the child in developmental exercises, you will never have to force and force him. Remember that no skill is formed overnight. Success is in frequent and short-term repetitions. This form of training is easier to endure for both the baby and you. Translate any failure as a joke, and do not forget to praise for success. How interesting can be speech therapy gymnastics for the development of a child’s speech, the photos given in the article illustrate quite reliably.
Finger games
Logopedic gymnastics necessarily includes such exercise games. They are an excellent tool for the development of the so-called fine motor skills, leading to improved speech quality, stimulating attention and a good reaction. Thanks to them, coordination of movements, spatial memory is improved and the accuracy of expressions increases. How to play:
1. Palms represent a flower. Fingers (half-bent) are connected in the shape of a bud. At the command "the sun rises" the handles stretch up like a flower.
2. The bud opens. Hands are getting divorced.
3. Sunset the sun. Palms should be lowered.
4. The flower goes to bed. Fingers reconnect to the bud.
Another finger game is called Thunderstorm. Its meaning is to learn to coordinate text and hand movements at different rhythms of sound. An adult reads out the conditions, the task of the children is to perform the appropriate movements: drops are dripping (a light tap on the table top with each of the index fingers alternately), it started to rain (soft tapping with four fingers on both hands), the rain poured out of a bucket (the same as you can louder), the hail goes (knock hard with your knuckles), the thunder rattles (the children drum on the table with fists), lightning flashed (the picture in the air should be depicted with the index finger while pronouncing the sound "shhhh"), everyone ran home (clapping in your hands and hide your hands behind your back), in the morning the sun came up (with two hands we describe a large circle).
Speech therapy articulatory gymnastics
The main organ of speech is, of course, language. His flexibility and mobility require mandatory training, otherwise he will not be able to serve his purpose qualitatively. Good sound pronunciation is one of the most important properties of normally developed speech, therefore both the tongue and lips must be strong and flexible enough.
The goals of articulatory gymnastics - the development of the tongue and lips - are achieved by training certain muscles. Exercise should be opposite the mirror. Looking into it, the baby visually sees the work of his own lips and tongue. Only constant repetition will lead to automation. Closely monitoring what the lips and tongue do is very important for the baby.
As a result of articulatory gymnastics, the pronunciation of the necessary sounds and words should improve.
What exactly to do?
Here is a sample list of speech therapy exercises for speech organs:
1. Have your child swing their own tongue on a swing. On command, the baby opens his mouth wide, smiles, sticks his tongue out of his mouth, and alternately touches his upper teeth, palate and lower teeth.
2. Brush your teeth. Smiling at his reflection in the mirror, the child draws his tongue along the inner side of the upper and lower row of teeth, simulating their brushing, then rinses his mouth. The movement is worth repeating about 10 times, an adult at this time can accompany the action with meaningful nursery rhymes or tongue twisters.
3. To the tongue twisters or verses about delicious goodies (for example, pancakes with jam), recited by an adult, the baby smiles, opens his mouth and licks the upper lip with circular movements of the tongue, after which the lower lip supposedly removes the remaining jam.
We develop hearing
Phonemic (speech) hearing is the ability to correctly recognize sounds. How to develop hearing? Hiding behind a screen, try knocking alternately with objects made of metal, glass or wood. The child must guess what exactly you knock with a glass, a wooden or metal spoon, etc.
Try to imitate the sounds that birds or animals make, or find the appropriate audio recordings. Let the kid guess which of the animals "greets" him.
Try this exercise: the baby closes his eyes (even more interesting if you use a real blindfold), and you with a small bell move to different corners of the room. The task of the child is not looking to guess by the sound exactly where you are.
Another option is a growl of the motor. Children should determine if it is a motorcycle, tractor, or car. You can play the game "Traffic Light", for this you should prepare an audio recording in advance with the noises characteristic of busy traffic. Hearing the beeps of various modes of transport, the noise of the crowd, etc., the child calls what is happening on the street. This contributes to the development of his auditory attention.
Speech therapy for the development of a child’s speech: imitate everything we hear
Onomatopoeia comes down to the child repeating various vowels after an adult. For example, how a person sighs “Oooh!”, How a donkey shouts “I-u-u!”, How the buzzer sounds “U-o-o-o!”. After the vowels, we move on to the consonants - the forest makes a noise "Shhh", a mosquito peeps "Z-z-z", a hedgehog snorts "F-f-f". In addition, let the baby portray the “voices” of household items with sounds - the water drips “drip-drip”, the clock goes tick-by-tick, the hammer hammers the “tap-tap” nails.
You can imitate the voices of birds and animals using toy figures or pictures with images of forest inhabitants (both adults and cubs). Ask the baby to show how loud the frog mom croaks, and how quietly the little frog. Open him the illustration for the fairy tale "Three Bears", and let him list how the bear father growls, the bear mother, how the little bear cub squeals.
Logo rhythm includes exercises for repeating actions and rhymes for students under musical accompaniment. You can, for example, play a walk, simulating movement. We walk on the spot, raise our legs and knees high, swing our arms, “fall into the hole” (sit down on the floor) and so on.
About rhymes and tongue twisters
Tongue twisters are a very effective form of exercise. They should be selected for such letters and sounds, in the pronunciation of which the baby has the most serious spaces. There are many benefits from them - it is in improving diction, and in the development of verbal hearing, and in expanding vocabulary. In addition, the short funny rhymed lines to the kid pronounce interesting and fun.
Logopedic gymnastics finds its continuation in verses, the task of which is to increase the number of understood and pronounced. An active dictionary, as you know, is what the child says, passive is what he understands. The second is always an order of magnitude more extensive. For the general development and transition from a passive to an active dictionary, you should communicate a lot with the kid in any circumstances - on a walk, on the way to the kindergarten, at the table, etc.
If you are not lazy and use the slightest opportunity for such communication, creatively weaving tongue twisters, games for hands and fingers, articulation exercises in everyday life, then the result will be necessary.
Note to a home speech therapist
It is absolutely not worth it to go into the purity of pronunciation. Minor speech defects tend to pass by themselves over time. Sometimes they are associated with the anatomical features of the larynx, nasopharynx and tongue, and speech therapy does not always help. With the growth of the child, most of these problems are automatically eliminated.
You should not start classes with the child, if for some reason you are out of sorts and are not able to provide an easy fun atmosphere of the game, it is better to postpone it until better times. Always believe in your baby and show how happy you are for the smallest success. In addition to the direct speech therapy effect, such classes can bring you and your baby together and give you a lot of interesting moments.