Communication is key, especially when it comes to making progress in Speech Therapy Adelaide and maintaining a positive outlook with the client. After all, it’s difficult for children to feel empowered and motivated if they don’t understand what’s happening during their sessions. Fortunately, there are several ways that you can improve your communication skills as a clinician. Below we share seven of them with you.

Combine your Articulation and Language Therapy

It’s important to incorporate both articulation and language therapy in your treatment so that you can strengthen all aspects of communication. This can be done by pairing the two (for example, having a conversation about something new or engaging in a game) or by doing exercises on paper that target both areas at once (such as sorting cards into categories). Combining these two therapies will help ensure more integrated communication skills, which is the ultimate goal of therapy!

Flip Your Group and Individual Therapy Model

Group therapy is a great way for kids to socialize and make friends. But for speech-language pathologists, it can be difficult to ensure that each child receives the individualized attention they need.

To address these issues, consider flipping the model from group therapy to individualized instruction. This means that instead of bringing all of your students together for a single session in which they share strategies with one another and practice together, you would split them into two groups: one focused on developing their own abilities and another focused on helping other children improve their communication skills.

The first group (which may be referred to as “self” or “individual”) will spend time learning about the disorder they are working through or want help improving; reviewing their progress; receiving feedback from SLPs; practising new techniques; implementing those techniques during small-group lessons with peers; and reflecting upon how well things worked out over time.* The second group (which could be called something like “community support” or “peer mentoring”) would work with peers who are further along in their development than themselves but who may have some related difficulties—such as articulation errors or trouble transitioning between sounds—in order to provide encouragement and coaching from someone else who has already been through this process themselves.*

Apart from giving kids more personal attention than traditional group therapy does, this method also allows SLPs greater flexibility when it comes time for assessments since there will always be at least one group available for testing purposes.”

Let the Client Keep Their Own Data to Improve Speech Therapy

You should be keeping a record of your progress as you work through speech therapy. This allows you to monitor your own progress, and it can help the professional who is working with you in the future. If you are using an electronic device for speech therapy, then the records may be automatically recorded on the device. The device will often provide an easy way for you to review previous sessions and see whether there were any areas where improvements could have been made.

Have a Child Repeat Their Goals

Very often, when a speech-language pathologist is working with an individual to create goals for therapy, there is an emphasis placed on the “why” of those goals. The “what” and “how” can sometimes be overlooked in favour of exploring why it is important for this person or group of people to achieve the goal(s). But that doesn’t mean that those are things we shouldn’t explore as well!

If you have an individual who needs help talking better, one thing you could do would be to ask them what they want out of Speech Therapy Adelaide. Maybe they say something like, “I want people not to think I’m dumb just because I stutter.” You then write down these words and ask them if they can repeat them back to you out loud. When they do so successfully (or even partially successfully), ask them if they would like a copy of their written goal statement that has been recorded onto paper for later to use during practice sessions at home or school (or wherever else).

Record the Child with Your Phone and Have Her Watch It

A great way to help your child recognize her own speech patterns is to have her watch a recording of herself speaking. This can be done with any type of camera, but I recommend using either a phone or video recorder that has a built-in microphone (if you’re using an actual video camera and not just the front-facing camera on your phone). If possible, place the child in front of a mirror so they can see themselves while listening to their voice as well. This will help them relate what they hear and see with their own body movements during speech production.

Once you have recorded the session, play it back for the child and ask them how they feel about their performance. If there are parts where she feels embarrassed or frustrated by what she said or how she said it, ask her if there are other ways she could change those words so that they would be easier for her listeners to understand when spoken correctly

Teach Compensatory Strategies

Compensatory strategies are ways of doing something differently or altering your environment to help you achieve a goal. For example, if you have difficulty chewing food, using cutlery might be a compensatory strategy. If you have trouble writing with your dominant hand due to motor control issues, using your non-dominant hand could be another compensatory strategy. You may also choose to use voice-recognition software or other assistive devices for communication purposes if speaking is difficult for you.

It’s important to teach compensatory strategies because they can help people develop independence and reduce reliance on others for assistance in daily life tasks. By teaching these skills early on in the therapy process—and then reinforcing them throughout the duration of treatment—you’ll ensure that clients and patients will continue implementing them long after they complete their appointments with you!

Conclusion

The bottom line is that there are many ways to improve Speech Therapy Adelaide outcomes. From incorporating the client’s interests into therapy to getting them more engaged in their therapy sessions by letting them keep track of their own goals and progress, these techniques can help you achieve better results. If you want additional tips on how to create an engaging environment with your clients, feel free to download our free ebook on how you can use fun in your speech therapy sessions.