Parent Coaching: An Important Piece to the Speech & Language Development Puzzle
Parents and caregivers know their child better than anyone else. They know the silly faces, tickles, and little games that bring about their child’s big belly laugh. They know how to use just the right voices to narrate their child’s favorite book and bring the pictures to life. Parents know how to give the best cuddles when their child is seeking comfort, and they know what their child is trying to communicate when others may not understand.
Comparatively, speech-language therapists (SLP) often see children one or two times a week for an hour at a time. While we are trained to tune into a child’s development, parents have much more time with their child to support their language development. In addition to the gift of time, parents can often accomplish amazing things with their own children because of the unique connection they share.
When parents learn language strategies and use them within their daily routines (during the silly faces, tickles, and story time), the payoff is immense. Not only does a child’s language grow, but also the relationship between child and parent. As a parent gains confidence in using language strategies–and the child gains confidence in using language–they both experience the rewarding feeling of triumph.
Parent Coaching with a speech language pathologist can support you in this process.
What is Parent Coaching?
Parent Coaching is a collaborative process with an SLP and a parent/caregiver where the parent/caregiver learns how to implement strategies to support their child’s language development. During the parent coaching session, the therapist and parent/caregiver works as a team to best support the child’s language development. Here’s an example:
Teaching: The speech therapist explains how to implement the strategy as well as the rationale and purpose of the strategy. Often the speech therapist will demonstrate how to use the strategies by modeling them during a session.
Observing: The speech therapist observes the parent using the strategy during a session. This creates an opportunity for a parent to practice the strategy with guidance from the therapist.
Reflecting: The speech therapist and parent collaborate on reflecting on the effectiveness, ease, and feeling of the strategy and using critical thinking to problem-solve if necessary.
The Benefits of Parent Coaching
Research shows that Parent Coaching supports significant improvement in expressive and receptive language development of young children.* Below are additional benefits of using a parent coaching approach.
Parent coaching allows a parent to implement language strategies within daily routines, which improves carryover and generalization of language improvements.
Parent coaching often targets responsiveness, which increases conversational turns.
Parent coaching is effective for children with varying levels of language and cognitive delays, which makes it suitable for an array of children.
Children who received parent coaching demonstrated more complex language use.
Synapse SLPs encourage Parent Coaching as a therapeutic approach. Parent Coaching is easily embedded into weekly speech sessions with children. As the child makes progress towards their goals, the therapist will modify coaching strategies accordingly to facilitate further growth of skills. Importantly, Parent Coaching will set up a child for success with generalizing speech session progress to everyday life, which is often the “final step” to meeting their goals!
Summer Programs in Evanston for Children ages 2-4 years
This summer, Synapse is offering a unique opportunity for children ages 2-4 years old to participate in therapeutic play groups led by Speech-Language Pathologists.
Toddler Language Playgroup: 2’s and 3’s: Our goal is to introduce playgroups with an emphasis on participation in group activities with their caregiver/parent present.
Toddler Language Playgroup 3’s and 4’s: Our goal is to facilitate language development and social interactions with other same-age peers.
Here’s a link for more information regarding these groups and a link to sign up!
* Roberts, M. Y., & Kaiser, A. P. (2011). The effectiveness of parent-implemented language interventions: A meta-analysis. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(3), 180–199. https://doi.org/10.1044/1058-0360(2011/10-0055)
