The Importance of Parental Involvement In Their Child's Speech Therapy Process

Speech therapy is an important part of intervention for children with speech and language challenges. While speech language pathologists (SLPs) assess, guide, and teach strategies and tools, parents play a pivotal role in reinforcing the learning and strategies that help their child progress.

Parent Involvement Matters

Parents Understand Their Child Best

• While speech therapists are experts in speech and language challenges and exercises to remediate them, parents know their child best. Parents know their child's temperament, routines, and triggers, allowing them to easily personalize reinforcement of therapy goals. 

Parents Are The Child’s First Teacher

• Children learn from their parents first, and parents play a vital role in speech development, using everyday interactions to practice and reinforce communication skills. 

More Practice = More Progress

• While each speech therapy plan is unique to the patient, sessions typically occur 1-2 times a week, but continued learning should happen 24/7. Consistency and daily practice in a natural environment, such as the home with family, is the best way to learn and will result in better progress. 

Familiar and Comfortable Environment Enhances Learning

• Clinical environments can be unfamiliar and provoke anxiety for everyone, including children. Children often feel more comfortable and less distracted in a familiar home setting, with their parents by their side, making therapy and learning more enjoyable and effective. This is why more and more people are choosing virtual speech therapy over the traditional in-person therapy model. You can read more about virtual speech therapy with Great Speech in our blog titled “How Effective is Virtual Speech Therapy”. 

Evidence Supports Positivity of Parent-Led Practice

• A study shared by the National Library of Medicine proved that toddlers at risk for significant language impairment made great improvements when parents were involved in the intervention of their shortcomings. 

Parental Role in Online Speech Therapy

Our online speech therapy model gives parents a more central role in their child’s progress. Parents can easily sit in on the sessions with the speech therapist, learning alongside their child. From there, parents can practise these learned tools and techniques with their child at any time. This is known as parent coaching. 

Parents spend significantly more time with their children than any therapist possibly could, making parent coaching a highly beneficial aspect of speech therapy. This allows for continuous learning and reinforcement of communication skills at home. Parent involvement in speech therapy leads to faster and more significant progress. Parents can share their observations and their child’s progress with the SLP, enabling them to make adjustments and track progress more organically. 

You can read more about parent coaching in speech therapy in our blog titled “What is the Goal of Parent Coaching in Speech Therapy?”.

Collaboration is Key

Collaboration between parents and speech therapists is important and directly impacts how effectively and efficiently a child progresses in their speech therapy journey. Here is a breakdown of why collaboration is an essential part of therapy:

Consistency

• Therapy should not end when a session does. Children need consistent and continued reinforcement of speech and language skills in everyday settings. For example, if a child is working on the “s” sound in therapy, the therapist can guide the parents on how to encourage that sound during brushing teeth, storytime, or while playing with toys. Collaboration ensures that what's being taught during therapy is:
  • Reinforced at home
  • Practiced naturally during day-to-day activities
  • Not lost between sessions

Therapy That is Personalized and Relevant

• Parents know their child better than anyone. Because of this, they can offer beneficial insight into the child’s personality, behaviour, challenges, and daily routines. 

Empowering Parents

• Parents can play an important role in their child’s speech therapy journey. They can become active participants and not just listeners, learning tools and techniques to model with their child outside of therapy. 

Motivation and Engagement

• A child who has their parents involved is more likely to engage in therapy than one who does not. They often also speak more at home, where they are most comfortable, making virtual therapy with parental involvement a great fit. Parent participation in the virtual speech therapy journey:
  • Creates a familiar, supportive learning environment
  • Helps the child feel confident and understood
  • Keeps goals relevant to the family’s values or needs

Improved Progress Tracking

• When parents and speech therapists work together, it's easier for them to provide feedback to each other. Therefore, adjustments can be made quickly to fit the child’s individual needs. 

Increased Long-Term Success

• Studies show that children whose parents are involved in their speech therapy journey tend to make faster and more sustained progress than those who do not. 

Let’s Work Together

When parents and speech therapists work together as a team, children thrive. Collaboration creates a consistent, supportive, and enriched learning environment that no amount of isolated therapy can replace. Online speech therapy makes the partnership between SLP and parents more intuitive and accessible than ever.

Does your child need speech therapy? Read more about Speech Therapy for Children & Toddlers to determine if we are the right fit for you. 

As a parent, you do not have to be a speech expert. You just need to be a willing and engaged partner. We can do this together. Book your free introductory call today!