For many parents when told that speech therapy is recommended, this is a question that is often asked and is also a very valid question. While it may be frustrating, it can never be guaranteed how long or how many sessions your child will need before “graduating”. There are things that do impact how fast the progress is made and things that help the progress go faster! Below are a few things that impact how quickly your child can “graduate”!
- Frequency, intensity and duration of sessions: We at Family Chatterbox firmly believe in teaching parents how to do what we do to continue the sessions while we are gone and to work on the same goals throughout the week since we know more practice makes faster progress. Our typical speech therapy sessions are 1 session a week for an hour. This hour is mainly spent providing direct 1 on 1 therapy with parents present and then the remainder of the session is spent providing parent education and feedback on what to work on for the rest of the week to continue progress. It is great when families can be a part of the session as well! Some children will need more sessions per week for more frequent check-ins and more direct therapy for more accurate productions with the goals.
- Consistency: This is a huge piece of the puzzle to determine how fast the progress is made. The more consistent we practice a skill, the faster we get better and master it. Consistency is how often therapy sessions are kept (illnesses and overall health can impact this – especially during flu season/winter) and how often the homework given is completed. We know that when a child is sick, it impacts how much they can learn and retain the information that we are giving.
- Repetition: The more repetitions of an accurate production of a sound or language skill that we can provide in a shorter amount of time, the faster the progress is made. Some children need more repetitions of the right way to solidify than others and it can also vary by sound. In speech, we are always “practicing” our sounds (in conversation and daily tasks), but whether or not they are right or wrong is how fast therapy will go. This is why we stress so much during our sessions the homework and practicing during the week when we are not there!
- Awareness: Does your child know that the sound they are making is incorrect? Are they able to tell if that sound is in a word or not? These all show how much they are aware of the sound itself and how difficult it is. The more aware your child is about the error and the sound itself, the faster the progress will be made!
- Self-correcting: Self-correcting is one of the final steps in the therapy world! This shows that they are aware of the error more often and can think about their goals and what they need to do without continuous prompting or cuing. Self-correcting often starts in the simple tasks (more structured) and then moves on to longer conversations! Once they are self-correcting, it is typically quick for them to master that goal!
As a parent, it is always nice to know what to expect with your child and how long to expect to be working on a goal! While we are not able to directly pinpoint exactly how long it will take, the above variables can give us more of a guideline for that answer! If you have any questions about your child’s skills and where they may be with the above variables, feel free to reach out to any of us!
-Amber
