Rehab Resources
for speech and language therapy

How to reach your Speech Therapy Goals

Breaking goals down into specific, achievable steps.


stepping stones arcross wide riverThe trick to crossing a river is to use stepping stones.  The same is true for any big challenge: figuring out how to break it into manageable steps.

I’ve had my fair share of Physical Therapy. Most of it’s pretty minor stuff, luckily. (Bear with me. This really is about speech therapy goals. )
As my PT was teaching my how to do the exercises I realized that  we naturally recognize that PT has steps. You don't just go to the PT and in 1 hour you're completely "cured".

Therapy has several steps:

  1. Observe how to do the exercise.

  2. Learn to judge  when you do it correctly (or not), with assistance from the PT.

  3. Practice the exercise, self-correcting when you judge you've done it wrong.

  4. Learn to judge when you did it correctly (on your own).

  5. Practice independently as you recover.

Break Speech Therapy Goals into Manageable Steps

I'm a parent coach of my daughter's robotics team. One of the things our fantastic head coach teaches the kids is that you have to break the goal into small steps. His example is you can't plan like this:

Plan for trip to the Moon:

  1. Build Rocket
  2. Fly to Moon
  3. Land
  4. Fly Home

You need to break the goal down into simpler steps than above.

Image result for cutting steak into pieces with fork and knifeMy analogy is that you can't eat a steak in one bite.  You literally cut it into pieces.  So, we have to break speech therapy goals down into pieces as well. And the first steps are critical. If you get them wrong, the rest of therapy is frustrating and, worse, less effective.

Speech & language treatment can have a similar progression to PT, but I think most people only think about the last step (am I 100% yet?). That’s like spending the entire drive to Disney World asking Are we There yet?

Read the rest: how  break your speech therapy into easier steps...


Read  Tips for Caregivers on breaking therapy into easier steps



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Clay Nichols
Co-founder of MoreSpeech and Bungalow Software for unlimited speech therapy at home and in the clinic.

For 3 decades, Clay has helped patients, caregivers and speech pathologists with & language softwspeech are.  He shares the tips & tricks he's picked up along the way. He is not a speech therapst. Consult your speech therapist regarding any tips you read anywhere, including the Rehab Resources.

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