Top Tips: Creating an Individualized Home Practice Program
I recently met with the mom of a new client who expressed feeling overwhelmed when she looked at her son’s speech-generating device (SGD). She explained that she knew she should be using his SGD more, but didn’t know where to start or how to incorporate his AAC system within everyday routines. As a result, she often only turned on and used his AAC system during speech therapy sessions.
The way this mom felt is all too common and I’m confident almost every family can relate. However, I don’t want families feeling overwhelmed, especially when carrying over communication strategies outside of speech therapy sessions.
As an SLP, it’s my job to empower families to feel successful with speech home practice, or activities and strategies carried out after every therapy session. Speech therapy home practice needs to be tailored to each kiddo and family, easily fit within everyday routines, and feasibly implemented on a regular basis. We want to work with families to create a home practice program to which a family can adhere. This results in increased progress towards speech and language goals.
I’m sharing a few ways I keep speech therapy home practice simple and organized:
Meet families where they are at
When starting with a family, it’s important for me to understand how much time they have to dedicate to home practice. Does the child have other therapies or extracurricular activities? If so, the family may have less time to dedicate to speech home practice. How much background knowledge does the family have on their child’s diagnosis and strategies that can be used to improve their child’s communication? These questions help me to meet families where they are at rather than randomly assigning them tasks on a weekly basis.
Allocate session time to parent education and questions
If parents are available and involved in therapy sessions, I allocate the final 5 to 10 minutes of our session to a review of what we completed during therapy and suggestions for home carryover. If we review multiple strategies, I often ask families to pick one strategy that resonated with them the most to implement over the next few days.
If parents aren’t available during sessions, I follow-up via email after the session with a summary of therapeutic activities and home practice strategies.
Create a Google Sheets document to track home practice
For therapy sessions that heavily focus on parent training (e.g., Early Intervention, fluency), I create a Google Sheets document shared between me, parents, and other caregivers. After each session, I list the strategy for the week. In addition to keeping our home practice in one place, this system helps us document strategies we’ve already tried and those we may want to circle back to.
Focus on one strategy that a family can be successful with
Speech home practice should not be a laundry list of “to-dos.” When there are too many assignments, families become overwhelmed. This results in decreased adherence to strategies. Instead, I like to provide families with one strategy each week. This allows them to really focus on the strategy and feel successful with it.
Keep it fun!
Home practice should be fun for both kids and families! When it becomes a chore, follow through decreases.
Incorporate external reminders
How can reminders be placed around the house to support families in practicing? Post-it notes on the fridge? Phone reminders?
Encourage kids to be responsible for home practice
For older kids, open up a discussion about the importance of home practice. Encourage them to take the lead on remembering speech homework. Can you incorporate a weekly sticker chart to incentivize them even further?
What home practice strategies work well for your family?