The question to ask is this: what does my child want to communicate and how can I teach him/her to do that in a different way? Pay attention to the word or phrases they have trouble conveying and encourage them to try and speak correctly. In children with Down syndrome articulation or clarity of speech is often affected. Play interactive games like peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake and bubbles. Use of basic Makaton signs including signs for more, finished, give me, and help. Children with Down syndrome have been successful learning to read individual words as early as age 2. You can help the child by providing auditory, visual and tactile cues for the same. A lot of times, children with Down syndrome, are understanding and keeping the words read in their vocabulary bank to use it later when they can. Are You Searching for an Audiologist and Speech Therapist? Benefits of Speech Therapy for Stammering, Read related article - Want to Improve Your Hearing? Tongue thrust (also called âreverseâ or âimmatureâ swallow is the common name given to oro-facial muscular imbalance, a human behavioural pattern in which the tongue protrudes through the anterior incisors during swallowing, speech and while the tongue is at rest. At times, children with Down syndrome also suffer from the following conditions: A speech language pathologist carries out an assessment to help identify the areas in which the child is facing difficulty. Take pictures of your Childâs items and things they see in their environment, encourage them to point to those items. It is noticed that some children with Down syndrome start gesturing and using signs to communicate before they learn to use speech. These special children have developmental delays which vary from mild to severe in learning, speech and cognitive development. Physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy exercises for children are the common treatments for Down syndrome. Those emotions remain the same now that I’m a parent to a child with Down syndrome. Sounds are initially targeted in the isolation level followed by syllables, words and then phrases, sentences and regular conversation. They also face some difficulty with speech clarity and overall speech. Take turns blowing bubbles. So yes, I can offer advice for teaching your child with Down Syndrome to read, such as: read a lot, provide a lot of exposure to books, go to the library, check out the resources offered by Down Syndrome Education International. Talk about friendly and unfriendly actions and who makes a good friend. wake-up, use the bathroom, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, playtime), Encourage your child to lick food substances from a spoon. How Can A Speech Therapist Help A Child With Down Syndrome? Other Related Recommended Speech Therapy Exercise For Down Syndrome, Speech Therapy For Down Syndrome To Improve Muscular Strength. Pull faces in the mirror â encourage your child to copy you or make them move their tongue up and down and side to side. Learning to talk to children with Down syndrome has a few special challenges simply because of the nature of the disorder. Slow down your own talking too. It is important to practice talking clearly and coherently. Once the child begins to attempt to say or sign the words you are modelling for him / her, you must praise them for their efforts, eg. Rolling the dice and saying the target words that many numbers of times. Children with Down syndrome are usually motivated by social interaction. More what? These include receptive language skills, expressive language skills, play skills, social skills, semantics, syntax, articulation skills, oral motor planning and Oro-motor strengthening skills. Any remedy provided during the initial years helps the child to bridge the gaps in the developmental delay. if the child brings a glass/ bottle of water to you, you can make the child tap your hand and you can model (emphasise lip movement) âMumma waterâ for your child. Autism screening may be able to be done sooner than previously thought. This is basically the development of non-verbal skills before the use of verbal skills for communication. Using functional objects within play also helps. Children with Down Syndrome often have trouble talking clearly. Thus, we encourage the use of manual signs to allow the children t… It’s a chromosomal condition. A child who develops typically, might begin to talk anywhere from one to three years and string together words from 15 to 32 months of age. Singing is another good opportunity to improve the Childs speech and language skills. Also, use actions and gestures. to increase your childâs auditory awareness. Many children without Down syndrome go through a phase of hitting or pulling hair. By looking into the mirror, the child notices the exact position of the tongue, lips, and teeth. The child makes use of the mirror to observe the mouth and repeats the exercise until he can produce the correct sound and words. They've connected two words to make a phrase between the ages of two and seven-and-a-half. bubbles. Handy Tips To Fix Them At Home. Nicola Hart, our Speech and Language Advisor outline the ways in which you can help your child along in the Speech and Language section . When the child repeatedly picks up the book he likes and is familiar with the story, you should pause mid-sentence while story-telling and encourage him/her to finish the sentence. I expect many children with Down syndrome would like to say this to adults, if they could talk. First, children have to learn the names of the number words (the count word sequence) in the correct order (the stable order). Next, we present activities for children with Down syndrome that can help you improve the skills of these children. Do You have a Hearing Loss? Most students with Down syndrome fall into the mild to moderate range of cognitive impairment. Understanding the difference in speech, language and communication is an important factor. The following activities help to develop tongue strength and mobility. Generally, children with Down syndrome have verbally expressed their first words between ages one and four. The tongue of children with Down syndrome appears thick and slightly larger in size and many a time tongue thrust (see footnote for details) is observed. It can be either spoken or written and mainly consists of the use of words in a structured and conventional way. Communication, by definition, is the process in which there is an exchange of information. How do we encourage or motivate a child with Down syndrome to talk more? 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