Helping your child succeed in speech therapy isn’t just about practicing words, it’s about creating the right environment for learning. Many kids struggle with attention, regulation, or sensory challenges that make it hard to fully engage in speech sessions. That’s where occupational therapy comes in! By addressing these underlying challenges, OT can help your child feel more focused, calm, and ready to participate.
My name is Poonam Menezes. I’m an occupational therapist at Joy & Laughter Developmental Therapy. Today, we’re going to discuss how occupational therapy can help kids succeed in speech therapy.
Kids Need to Be Present & Willing to Participate in Speech Therapy
Kids need to be present and willing to participate both in speech therapy and in occupational therapy. But often, they have issues with focusing attention and following the therapist’s instructions. The most important thing is that we want the child to be calm, in a state of mind of readiness, and willing to explore and participate. And we do a lot of preparation to help them be able to achieve this.
For example, if the child is very hyperactive and it’s hard for them to sit in one place for a long time, if they’re just running from one end of the room to the other, we will try using a weighted vest with them. These come in different sizes and different weights.
We’ve seen that using a weighted vest helps kids to calm down because it gives them more compression so they can attend to a task. We notice less pacing, running around, jumping, and spinning. And they don’t need to have it for the whole session. We can try it for 15-30 minutes to start.
Occupational Therapy Can Help Your Child Improve Their Regulation & Attention Skills
Not every sensory input is beneficial for every child, because some children may react positively to it while others may have a negative reaction and try to avoid these inputs. That’s why you really need the clinical expertise of an occupational therapist to determine which is the right sensory input for your child.
For example, not every child needs to be in a sensory gym for therapy sessions. Sometimes, if the sensory gym is crowded, it’s too loud and it’s hard for our kids to focus. In that case, you could always have them in a small treatment room and still provide them with these sensory inputs to help improve their regulation and attention, such as:
Using a Therapy Ball
We can give the child a therapy ball that they can bounce or roll on. We can also have the child lie down on a mat and roll the ball on them, applying deep pressure. Note, I don’t mean we are squeezing the child tight beneath the ball. This is why you need the clinical expertise of an OT to know how much deep pressure you want to apply and how much the child can tolerate.
Giving Kids a Sensory Break
For some kids, their attention span is anywhere between half a minute to three minutes long, and we are working on slowly increasing their attention span. So, when they finish one activity and need to move on to the next activity, they need a sensory break. And during that sensory break, they can use:
- Pop-Its
- TheraPutty
- Play-Doh
- Weighted toys
- Weighted blankets
We can also use a sensory disc that the child can stand or sit on. That gives them extra pressure and helps them to focus while they’re attending to a task with the therapist. And these are things that children can also use during their speech therapy sessions when they need to focus on their speech tasks.
Playing in a Sensory Bin
Another activity that I have for kids to help with their regulation and attention is a sensory bin. It doesn’t have to be a huge tub. It can be a small container, and you can fill it with:
- Dry beans
- Dry rice
- Pompoms
- Small beads
- Small toy figurines
- Kinetic sand
And with the sensory bin, you could have utensils like a spoon or fork that they can use like a shovel to scoop up the items. This also helps them build their feeding skills by giving them practice using utensils. Some kids love to play with water as well. You could have kids play with water bubbles because it’s another activity that helps calm the child.
Occupational Therapy & Speech Therapy Can Work Together to Help Your Child Thrive
During a co-treat session, one of the goals of the occupational therapist is to help the child to regulate, to be calm and able to focus on the therapist-led tasks by using different sensory inputs. And the goal of the speech therapist is to help the child use their words and their voice.
With a lot of children, speech therapists will use an alternative and augmentative communication device (AAC). They may use an app like Touch Chat, where the child can press an icon on the tablet, and the tablet will generate the word. When we’re working together with the child’s speech therapist, we may use a simple pegboard toy where the child can build fine motor skills by moving colorful pegs around the board.
We can show a red peg to the child, then point to the “red” icon on the tablet, and the app will say, “Red.” Now, the child’s focus is not just on the peg but also on the tablet and the word “red.” Eventually, the child will also point at the red icon on the tablet, which is great because it shows they’re learning and communicating at the same time.
Reach Out to JLD Therapy for Expert Advice
These are different things that speech therapists and occupational therapists can collaborate on in their sessions with children. And we ask parents to attend these sessions in order to learn to practice this at home as well to further help their child make progress.
If you have any more questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at (408) 337-2727 today.