Dear Ruth,
I am a parent who has chosen to homeschool my children. My seven year old daughter has Down Syndrome. She is progressing well in almost all areas, but I feel I need some direction when it comes to speech. Her speech is intelligible, but she does not always speak as clearly as we know she can. Are there some "at home" activities that will strengthen her speaking skills?

B.B.

Dear B.B.,

For your daughter's special needs, I urge you to form partnerships with some professionals who can be your consultants. Beyond any general suggestions you will learn from your readings, you need helpers who actually know your daughter and your particular situation. Depending on her needs, you might use an occupational and physical therapist in addition to a speech pathologist. These people can get to know your daughter, add their perspectives to your own, and give suggestions and recommendations. If they feel she needs direct therapy, they will let you know what they feel is needed, and why. If you hit a rough spot, they will be in a good position to help with any intervention you might need to get things moving along.

A general suggestion for strengthening speech as well as language is to offer a variety of enrichments for auditory skills. Singing, rhythmic movement and rhyming are examples of activities which can benefit all children. You can also help her to hear the elements of speech more explicitly by clapping along with the syllables of words or phrases--using a relaxed pace but a natural rhythm, not robot-like. This kind of activity can help her to notice the shorter, unstressed syllables in the speech stream. It can help her to notice that a longer word like 'eh-phant' has a middle part: 'el-le-phant.'

You can also strengthen her foundation by identifying the sounds that make up words. I like to use 'play names' like 'tick-tock sound' for the /t/. To make effective use of this suggestion, I recommend direction from a professional, so that you are presenting them in a sequence and manner that makes sense for her needs, and pronouncing the sounds accurately which is extremely important for children with special needs. For example, the /t/ sound should be whispered, not pronounced 'tuh.'

Best Wishes,
Ruth Alice Jurey, M.S., C.C.C.
Speech/Language Pathologist

I wish

to encourage

belief

in the

human ability

to learn.

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