| 1. |
Tip the balance of your child’s talking toward times when he/she
is most fluent. To do this, document your observations of fluent/disfluent times over a
few days. Then plan talking times for situations/ times of the day when you anticipate
your child being the most fluent. |
| 2. |
Plan individual time (i.e., without other children competing for
attention) to talk and play with your child. Interruptions to his/her communication
attempts should be at a minimum during the focused time. |
| 3. |
If family members talk a lot or interrupt frequently, develop a
turn-taking system or rules. For example, instead of interrupting verbally, a gesture
could be used to signal a desire to talk. Raising a hand or touching the person who is
talking can be an effective signal. Just make sure the person talking knows to give up
their turn to the person requesting to talk! |
| 4. |
Maintain eye contact with the child during his/her communicative
attempts even if he/she is struggling. Show him/her that you have time and will wait.
Resist the urge to fill-in a word the child is attempting to say. |
| 5. |
Resist the urge to "drop everything" and become an
attentive listener when you hear your child become disfluent. If you are too busy at that
moment to listen attentively, then say "Give me just a minute to finish this, then we
can talk." Then, be sure you do go to him/her as soon as you are
finished and ask what he/she wanted to tell you. Remember if you "drop
everything" only when he/she becomes disfluent, you could be sending a message that
his disfluency brings extra positive attention. |
| 6. |
When talking with your child, model a slow rate of speech with
appropriate phrasing. This will encourage the child to speak slowly and use phrasing to
give himself/herself time to formulate the next phrase. |
