Find out about Gentle Speech Therapy and how you can use this gentle, low pressure approach to support children’s natural speech sound development at home or in your setting.

Gentle Speech Therapy

I’m a mum to three girls and a children’s Speech & Language Therapist, so I know how hectic family / work life can get sometimes! I also know how long the waiting lists are right now and how stressful it can be waiting for appointments, assessment and therapy. This blog is all about Gentle Speech Therapy; an easy, low pressure approach you can weave into your everyday to support children’s natural speech sound development.

This Gentle Speech Therapy approach takes elements from several different approaches including; Auditory Bombardment (Hodson and Paden), Auditory Input Therapy (Lancaster & Pope) and Naturalistic Intervention (Camarata). These elements, together with the use of general Speech and Language Strategies, provides a prime listening and learning environment; bathing a child’s auditory system in vocabulary containing a target sound.

Gentle Speech Therapy provides a welcomed approach to families that are often already stressed by long waiting lists, as well as those families that have been receiving a more direct approach in the clinic setting. This approach is also perfect for very young children as it provides a naturalistic way of learning sounds.

A Gentle Speech Therapy approach is one approach of many to support speech sound development. It does not replace direct Speech Sound Therapy, but instead, compliments it. It’s this approach that I have used when developing my Speech Sound Support packs and also that I talk about on my Speech Sound Support Workshop.

The main reason I love this approach…

…there is no expectation for the child to imitate or “have a go”. Reducing the pressure on both the child and the adult by removing that expectation and instead being present in the moment, talking about the here and now, and using simple repetitive language often results in better engagement and is more a conducive Speech and Language learning environment.

You are providing plenty of opportunities throughout the day for the child to have a go if and when they are ready…

…meeting the child where they are at instead of focusing on the end goal!

If you want to learn more about Speech Sound development and a systematic way to support children with their Speech Sound Development?

Click here to check out my best selling Speech Sound Support Workshop

Here are some more reasons I love this approach…..

Why I love Gentle Speech Therapy

1. This is frequently the first step in Speech Sound Therapy AND often one of the first things I ask parents and practitioners to make a start with while waiting for therapy.

2. It's easy to weave into everyday play, routines, stories and songs so you can target speech sounds without your little one even knowing that they're doing speech work - WIN WIN!

3. This approach bathes children's listening skills with a target sound getting them ready to work directly on that sound in speech therapy OR getting them ready to make that sound when they are developmentally ready.

4. It is just perfect to get you started if you are waiting for therapy or if you are supporting children with unclear speech at home or in your setting.

5. This is a perfect low pressure approach for little ones that find it hard to attend for a long time OR if your little one needs a bit of a breather from direct speech sound work.

6. And finally…as there is no expectation for repetition or for the child to “have a go”, the pressure is off the adult who is then more likely to me more relaxed and present in the moment - children pick up on this!

Gentle Speech Therapy is based on the idea that overexposure to sounds helps to build a solid listening foundation which will in turn support natural speech sound development.

The focus is on teaching a target sound through listening; highlighting sounds and weaving exposure into everyday routines, books, activities, games and toys. As the focus is on listening and is low pressure, you do not expect or request imitation of words. Drawing attention to the target sounds by making them slightly louder and longer is enough.

For example when working on the “p” sound; you could choose games, activities, books, songs and rhymes that all contain the “p” sound;

Get the bubbles out and “pop pop pop” some bubbles, play with pop up toys, sing Hop Little Bunnies, “hop hop hop”, read The Enormous Turnip, “pull pull pull”, get some pots and do some planting…

If you need more ideas for more sounds then have a look at my Speech Sound Support Pack

Here is a short video clip of me explaining how to use this approach with the “p” sound. This video clip is from the Speech Sound Challenge that I ran in October 2020.

So there you have it!

A Gentle Speech Therapy approach to support natural Speech Sound development at home or in your setting. You can weave this approach into your everyday without that much extra effort! To help you out, I’ve put all of my ideas for 10 of the earliest developing Speech Sounds into a resource pack for you!

You can can check out the Speech pack, as well as my other resource packs here

If you want to learn more about Speech Sound development and a systematic way to support children with their Speech Sound Development?

Click here to check out my best selling Speech Sound Support Workshop

Bowen, C. (2011). Auditory Input / Naturalistic Intervention / Listening Techniques in Phonological Therapy. Retrieved from http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/ on 08/05/2021.

Camarata, S. (2010). Naturalistic Intervention for Speech Intelligibility and Speech Accuracy. In A. L. Williams, S. McLeod, & R. J. McCauley (Eds.), Interventions for speech sound disorders in children.