What Therapy Looks Like

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What can speech therapy look like at MCSLP?

The Many Ways to Communicate

Mr. X is working on expanding his social communication and requesting using total communication methods including his speech generating device, American Sign Language, vocalizations, and gestures.

Total communication provides communication support through verbal and other modalities, such as visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile awareness. This approach has proven to be extremely beneficial for X's expressive and receptive communication growth. Total communication is used consistently across environments by his supportive team members. Here, you can see and hear X's Mom and see his school behavioral support staff supporting and reacting to all communication. It takes a village!

Clear Speech Production

Did you know the /r/ sound is one of the trickiest for kids to master? Unlike other sounds you can see on the lips, /r/ is hidden inside the mouth and takes very precise tongue movement and coordination.

Because there are many different types of /r/ (like in red, car, and train), errors can often linger longer than other sounds. Struggling with the /r/ sound is common, but with a specialized approach, progress is absolutely possible!

MidCoast SLP therapy sessions are designed to be engaging, supportive, and tailored to your child’s needs — helping them learn how to produce /r/ correctly while building confidence in their communication. Parents often notice not only clearer speech, but also reduced frustration and greater success in school and social settings.

If your child is still having difficulty with /r/, especially past age 5, now is a great time to reach out and see how targeted therapy can make a lasting difference. Just look at how proud Mr. O is of himself after producing a "great /r/"!

The Importance of Following a Child's Lead

When kiddos provide such clear communication about their interests, why wouldn't I follow their lead? Child led treatment sessions are so much more fun and effective!

Miss R and I started with a Halloween theme to target her "s" productions. She picked her words from the monster's belly to practice, pop into an egg, and send down the tube.

That was until she discovered that the monster ate one of her absolute FAVORITE things...a dinoSaur!

With a quick adjustment of activity, we rolled with this motivating word and later dug a dinosaur out of an egg. Adapting session plans quickly to match interests leads to independent involvement along with higher frequency of practicing our target sounds!

Miss R was on board for turning into an expert paleontologist and went home with a new friend!

Game Play with Intention

In speech therapy, games are more than just fun—they’re powerful tools for building communication skills.

When using games to target language, children can practice forming and answering questions, using descriptive language, and applying reasoning to eliminate choices.

Games, like Guess Who? also supports social interaction through turn-taking, listening, and respectful conversation. Depending on the child’s goals, SLPs may target articulation, fluency, or language organization—all while keeping learning engaging and motivating.

Bring More Play Into Your Day

If I am making pediatric language therapy functional, meaningful, motivating, and exciting, I believe it SHOULD resemble “just play”. Below, I’m eager to share what my speech therapist mind is actually focusing on while “playing”.

Skills needed for language:

Joint attention (focusing on the same activity)
Motor imitation (banging items together, putting on head)
Imitation of speech sounds and words
Comprehension of spoken words (body parts, prepositions)

Provided fitting supports to encourage and expand language by using:

Repetitive play at her level (sitting face to face, “Up-up-up”)
Observe and wait: be quiet, encourage spontaneous imitation!
Motor actions paired with language (“Boom boom!”)
Expansion of language (“Peek-a-boo, I see you!”)
Language modeling (“On my head!”)
Narrating INSTEAD of asking questions ("On my head" vs. “Is this my head?”, “Can you say head?”)