Supporting unclear speech
Supporting unclear speech
If you find it hard to understand your child, this can be frustrating for you both. There are things
you can do to help:
- Don’t pretend that you understand what your child is trying to say – sometimes, no matter how hard you both try, you may not be able to understand what your child is saying. Place the blame on yourself, eg: ‘My ears aren’t working properly today!’ If you really can’t understand what your child is saying, see if they can use another way such as talking around the topic, drawing, using a gesture or showing you.
- Repeat any parts of the message you do understand – eg: “You are telling me about Grandma?” or “You want something?”
- Focus on what your child is telling you, not how they are saying it – encourage your child to keep trying to communicate and let them know that you are interested in what they have to say.
- Praise your child – they will be trying as hard as they can, so be sure to give them lots of praise for their effort.
Modelling speech sounds
Modelling is when we repeat back words that a child has said with their sound mistakes ‘fixed’, eg:
child says “look, the dun”, adult says “Yes, the sun”. We do not ask the child to repeat our models. They can learn from hearing the correct way to say the words and sounds.
When you model, emphasise the sound your child finds difficult. Do this by making the sound a
little bit louder and/or a little bit longer.
To help the success of your modelling:
- have conversations in a quiet space and be face to face, so your child can hear and see your
speech model; - when it feels appropriate to repeat back a word your child has said, wait and pause before you speak, this pause will encourage your child to look towards your face.
To find out more about speech modelling watch this video: