Top tips from South Lakes Speech & Language Therapy to support your child’s communication when their speech is unclear.
1. Get Face-to-Face
Whenever possible, get eye level with your child when communicating so they can see your mouth moving and how you are forming sounds. Being eye level also helps you and your child see all the clues about what is being communicated that we give through facial expressions and body language.
2. Eliminate Background Noise
Turn the radio off in the car and the TV off at home when you are speaking with your child. Children are most successful communicators when they are not competing with background noises and this will give you the best chance of correctly hearing your child’s message.
3. Encourage Gestures
If your child’s speech is unclear, encourage them to use gestures and other natural speech signs when talking to give listeners more clues about the message they are communicating. Makaton is another way to support young communicators.
4. Offer Choices
When possible, offer a young child two choices so they can communicate which they want. This gives you a better chance of understanding what they say since you already know the message possibilities.
5. Ask Your Child to Tell You in a Different Way
If you are struggling to understand your child’s message, ask younger children to show you or take you to what they are talking about when possible. Older children may be able to describe the target word if you prompt them by asking ‘What is it used for? or ‘Where do you find it?’. This could give you the clues you need to figure out their message.
6. Give the Conversation Context
If your child’s speech is unclear, ask specific questions such as ‘What was your favourite lesson today?’ or ‘Who did you play with at break time?’ instead of open ended questions such as ‘What did you do at school today?’. The more context you can give the conversation, the better chance you have at figuring out your child’s message.
7. Instead of Correcting, Model
If your child mispronounces a word, repeat the word back clearly using the correct
pronunciation. For example, if your child says “Look, a gog!”, You could say, “Wow, that is a big dog!” while emphasizing the mispronounced sound.
8. Admit when you Don’t Understand
If your child has tried several ways to communicate their message and you cannot understand, let them know. Try to be reassuring and let them know that you are sorry that you cannot understand what they are saying.
9. Keep a ‘Translation List’
If there are particular words your child regularly says that people find difficult to understand, keep a list of the target words and how your child pronounces them. Share this list with your child’s teacher and family members to help your child be more easily understood by the people in their life.
10. Get Specialist Support
A 2021 study on speech intelligibility in children sampled children’s intelligibility at the single- and multiword levels. The study measured how well unfamiliar adults understood children at different ages without contextual clues; parents should expect to understand an even higher percentage of their child’s speech. The study found the following speech intelligibility norms:1
- 25% intelligible by 3 years of age
- 50% intelligible by 4 years of age
- 75% intelligible by 5 years of age
- 90% intelligible by 7 years of age
If your child’s speech is difficult to understand and not meeting these intelligibility thresholds, consider seeking specialist support from a speech and language therapist; and if you have concerns for your child’s hearing, consider having their hearing tested.
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