As a child grows, their ability to communicate through words should develop naturally, as you interact with them. They should be able to learn sounds and words from you, as this is how they learn to talk. In some cases, this natural process is hindered by one or more factors. The hindrance brings a delay in the child’s ability to communicate through the articulation of words, the ability of the child to learn a language as well as their ability to be fluent. In the event that you notice all these in your child, you need the services of an expert in speech therapy. A speech therapist is trained to help restore the child’s ability to communicate. How long the process takes actually depends on the following factors:
The amount of speed sounds that needs to be learned
One of the main factors that determine how long the therapy will last is the number of sounds that the child has to learn. There are cases where the sound to be learned is just one and as you can already guess; this will not take a long time. On the other hand, a child that needs to learn multiple sounds will take longer to complete the therapy. Based on this, the therapist should be able to give you an estimate of how long it should take.
The frequency of the therapy sessions
It has been said repeatedly that practice makes perfect and it therefore is understood that the number of therapy sessions will also determine how long the whole process takes. For instance, if your child has three sessions of speech therapy a week, they will most likely learn faster than that child that has one session in two weeks. You should always work with a therapist who is reputed to produce excellent results within the shortest time possible.
The effort from the child
Another thing that determines how fast the child or person undergoing the therapy will learn to communicate effectively is their effort to the learning process. Those that take the therapy positively put in a lot of effort in it and hence move faster in the learning process. On the other hand, poor effort means that the therapy will take longer as the learning will be slower. The therapist should be competitive enough to be able to motivate the person undergoing the therapy to put in good effort in order to learn faster. This is why it is important for you to look into the qualifications and success record of the therapist before hiring them.
Speech learning from a reputable therapist
A good speech therapist knows that the student needs to keep on learning even on his or her own. In light of this, they should help the child undergoing speech therapy set their own goals to help them continue learning without the therapist. In the event that the student is a child, the therapist should work together with the parent to make sure that the child keeps on practising even after the therapy sessions. This increases the child’s ability to retain the sounds and skills they learn and helps to shorten the therapy process.
