Children learn to communicate with adults and speak in the first year of life, but not always a clear and competent pronunciation is achieved by the age of five. Often kindergartens, where a child among peers learns to speak more intensively and dramatically increases vocabulary, knowledge and understanding, become involuntary participants in involving the baby in the process of active speaking. However, there is no doubt that the pace of technological development and children's knowledge of household appliances, computer devices often give odds to adults, but speech skills are left far behind. And by the age of four to five years, a child is sometimes not only unable to pronounce sounds correctly, but also to formulate a thought.
The unanimous opinion of pediatricians, child psychologists and speech therapists-defectologists coincides: the child should restrict access to computer games and, if possible, replace them with outdoor games, didactic materials and developmental games: lotto, dominoes, mosaics, drawing, modeling, applications, etc. d. Attention to the child should be given constantly, if possible, encouraged by emotions of delight, joy, praise, each new achievement in the correct pronunciation and constantly train the muscles of the palate, tongue, lips and pharynx.
Causes of Speech Disorders
If a child says less than twenty simple words a year, you need to pay attention to how the family communicates with the younger and older, what is the general psychological background in the family, the relationships of family members and ways of raising children.
If, in the opinion of the psychologist, the child’s mental state is good, hearing and intelligence are normal, speech therapy sessions with children of 3-4 years old will correct pronunciation and allow the child to learn how to speak faster.
Sometimes, for a number of reasons of a neurological, physical, or mental nature, speech disorders result in a certain form.
This can be caused by poverty of the vocabulary, mispronunciation of words, confusion in the endings or rearrangement of syllables of the word, there may be manifestations in the pace of speech.
Types of disorders in the child's speech development
Speech therapists divide speech disorders into phonetic-phonemic underdevelopment of speech (when vowels are swallowed, hard or soft consonants are not pronounced, etc.), general speech underdevelopment and certain types of speech problems:
- Alalia.
- Dysgraphia.
- Dyslexia.
- Dysarthria
- Dislalia.
- Stuttering.
- Aphasia.
- Rinolalia and some other types, subspecies of violations.
How to identify speech impairment
As a rule, in early childhood, babies do not develop equally, therefore, it is rather difficult to classify any violation with external common signs of health. With careful attention to a small family member, manifestations of violations can be noticed by parents and older children.
Logopedic classes begin with children 3-4 years old, when a certain vocabulary is normally formed, and the child actively communicates or is forced to strive to explain his needs and desires verbally, rather than by gesticulation. Psychologists note this age also because personal growth simultaneously with new forms of thinking and self-identification of a child makes one interested in new things, strive for communication, especially communication with peers. Due to the fact that the children themselves teach each other to explain more clearly in a playful and natural way, the vocabulary and, accordingly, the child’s speech changes at 3-4 years old.
Speech therapist test for parents - a signal for action
Test tasks given by speech therapists allow you to determine the level of violations or to identify the absence of violations in the child. Often some time devoted to activities captivates the baby, he engages with interest in completing tasks and after a short time begins to speak much better and more correctly. If speech impairments are nevertheless detected, parents should know that often they can be easily corrected, provided that classes and exercises with the child are carried out not only in the group with the pathologist, speech therapist, but also at home.
What includes a speech therapy lesson
In the course of psychological and speech therapy sessions for children 3-4 years old, the child’s education is simultaneously conducted not only in the speech sense, because the related processes of brain activity, speech functions, motility in a complex should be carried out in different directions:
- general, fine motor skills should be developed (modeling, drawing, rolling, clapping, squeezing and unclenching fists, patting with fingers, lacing, button-unbuttoning will help here);
- it is equally important to develop articulatory motility (regular gymnastics for the muscles of the tongue, lips, larynx and palate);
- correction of sound pronunciation, the correct setting of sounds by a speech therapist;
- correction of errors in diction and training in rhythm, smoothness of speech and diction.
What are useful speech therapy exercises
Description of a speech therapy session for children 3-4 years old includes compulsory articulatory gymnastics to relieve muscle tone and spasm, dynamic and static exercises for the tongue, lip corners, lower jaw muscles, cheeks, finger gymnastics and fine motor skills, sometimes reflexology massage. During corrective exercises, children learn spatial representations, develop motor skills and memory, visual images, attention, thinking and observation. Sensory functions develop, constructive thinking is practiced , muscle tone is gradually normalized.
The psychological aspect of working with a child
Peculiarities of a speech therapy session with children aged 3-4 years may relate to the psychological component, often children with speech disorders due to opposing themselves to those who speak well, complex or become self-contained. The task of the teacher is to position the child, interest and make him overcome the barriers created by himself in relation to his own particularity. The flip side may consist in opposing oneself in a conflict way, indiscipline, caprice, refusal to work together. In this case, individual speech therapist classes are recommended for children 3-4 years old - it is easier to convince and interest a special child in private when an adult becomes a baby a friend and assistant, able to see the efforts at the whims.
General developmental classes
Physical education, although it is not included in the set of exercises with a speech therapist, is still important, gymnastics develops the correct breathing tact, which, in turn, contributes to a better saturation of the brain with oxygen and good circulation of blood flow. Speech therapy sessions with children 3-4 years old are often accompanied by the development of fine motor skills with improvised means in the form of puzzles, mosaics, origami, constructor, drawing and games aimed at developing mnemonic memory. In addition, the memory is trained in riddles in poetic form, tongue twisters and rhymes on a fun theme. Of course, and training is carried out in a playful way, otherwise the baby may flatly refuse to perform exercises and gymnastics. The task of the speech therapist and parents is to participate in the formation of the correct speech of the child as fully as possible, because the sooner the violations are noticed, the more chances there are to eradicate them and help the baby communicate beautifully and correctly, which means becoming a competent and pleasant interlocutor.
Speech Therapy Massage
Speech therapy classes for children aged 3-4 years old include gymnastics of the masticatory, articulatory, facial and articulatory muscles, gymnastics of the lips and cheeks, tongue, and the frontal region, and if necessary, speech therapy massage (classical, acupressure), including vibrating stroking, kneading, stretching.