Practice Toolkit

How the Practice Toolkit works

Flashcards, songs, stories and mini-games turn communication practice into part of your child's day. Research on speech and language therapy points to two things that matter: parents who know the strategies, and enough time for change to build up.

• We show you the strategies, so you can use them with confidence at home.
• Activities are matched to your child's goals and kept short and playful.
• Therapy plans run for weeks, not a single visit, so new skills have time to stick.

What the research says

Speech and language therapy helps children with speech-sound and vocabulary delays.

Researchers pooled the results of controlled trials of speech and language therapy for children with developmental speech and language delays. The clearest benefits were for speech sounds and expressive vocabulary, and therapy delivered by trained parents did about as well as therapy delivered by clinicians.

What they found:

• Therapy looked effective for children with speech-sound difficulties and for children with expressive vocabulary difficulties.
• Results for expressive grammar were mixed.
• There was very little evidence about therapy for understanding language (receptive skills).
• Interventions delivered by trained parents and by clinicians did not differ significantly.
• Therapy lasting longer than 8 weeks appeared more likely to lead to good outcomes.

Good to know: Only 13 of the eligible trials could be combined, and they were spread over 25 years, so the authors described their conclusions as tentative. They also pointed to gaps in the research, especially for receptive language.

Related services

• Speech Therapy for Kids
• In-Home Speech Therapy