There are different kinds of speech defects and your child might be suffering from one of them. However, the most common problem is that of delayed speech and language development. Sometimes, a severe medical condition or injury can lead to speech defects. You can opt for speech therapy in Dubai if your child is unable to properly understand and speak the language or has pronunciation difficulties.
Speech therapy improves a child’s ability to understand language skills using different methods and techniques for enhancing communication skills and language development.
What Does Speech Therapy Involve?
Speech therapy involves a variety of things. With articulation therapy, a person can learn how to pronounce the sounds and improve their speech intelligibility. It follows a particular process. Initially, the child hears the sound. Then, they learn to say it correctly first, in isolation and then in words, syllables, sentences, and conversations.
Another part is language therapy that treats receptive language, expressive language, or both. Receptive language is what a person understands and expressive language is what a person says or expresses. Receptive language includes skills like identifying pictures and the following direction, whereas expressive language involves making requests and naming objects.
In voice therapy, the speech-language pathologist (SLP) treats the disorders that are linked with the speaking voice. Sometimes, a voice disorder can make it sound hoarse, rough, or raspy. Trauma, illness, and abuse of speaking voice can lead to such disorders as vocal polyps, vocal cords paralysis, and vocal nodules, and laryngitis.
A child can learn to speak more easily and fluently with the help of fluency therapy. Another name of fluency therapy is called stuttering therapy. It allows a person to speak easily and confidently.
Last but not the least, there is oral and swallowing therapy that teaches a child to strengthen the muscles in the mouth that help with speech production and swallowing drink and food. Speech and swallowing can sometimes become weak due to injury or illness.
Common Techniques for Enhancing Language Development
Speech therapy follows two main techniques to boost speech and language development:
Verbal Technique
This technique deals with coordinating the mouth to produce the sounds to form sentences and words. It helps regulate the fluency and volume of the child. Understanding the alphabet and its uses for words and sentences is necessary. The verbal technique allows the child to understand the basics of the language.
Expressing Technique
The child learns to address the language through sign as well as pictorial forms. There are some apps and software that have made speech therapy sessions easier. It creates a playful and fun environment for the children and increases the learning experience.
Benefits of Speech Therapy
Here are the three main benefits of speech therapy:
Positive Attitude Towards Speech
Using the latest methods and technology helps the child learn the use of language for communication easily and effectively. Regular speech therapy sessions assist in developing normal speech habits with family and friends that lead to a positive attitude towards speech.
Improves Fluency
When the child gets rid of speech disorders, it leads to increased confidence and fluency. This confidence positively impacts them. When the child is confident, it affects their life positively. Achieving fluency is the ultimate goal of speech therapy and language development. This can be achieved by regular practice. Children can learn expressions, gestures, and words while practicing whatever they learn in these sessions.
Removes Feat of Stammering
With the help of regular speech therapy sessions, the child remains motivated and confident that they would not stutter anymore. Gradually, with the regular speech therapy sessions, they learn to remain confident and motivated. They can also play certain speech therapy games that help them in gaining confidence and remove the fear of stammering or stuttering.
A speech-language pathologist (SLP) provides speech therapy to both kids and adults. However, these issues are more common in children and should be addressed at a young age. The goal is to develop or regain communication skills in the best way possible. Usually, the duration of therapy relies on the extent of the communication disorder as well as the motivation of the patient or client. Sometimes, speech issues arise due to some psychological issues as well. In that case, you can seek a reliable and skilled psychologist in UAE for your child.
To sum it up, many children suffer from speech defects and each of them can be treated with the correct measures. Speech therapy is both effective and useful as it helps with communication skills while building confidence, precision, and stability in the child.