How to Overcome Receptive Language Disorder
Receptive language disorder occurs when a child has difficulty understanding what’s being said to them. This is because they have a difficulty in processing and retaining auditory information. For this reason, they struggle to follow instructions or directions. Although therapy is highly recommended to help your child overcome receptive language disorder, there are also some things you can do to help them along the way as well.
Although this may sound obvious, some parents take a “wait and see” attitude. This is because they’re told by their pediatrician that their child might outgrow it. Unfortunately, as your child grows older the problem will grow worse. Due to the way the brain develops, it’s easier to learn language skills before you’re 5-years-old. It’s also easier to break bad habits (a.k.a. articulation errors) when they first begin – before they grow ingrained.
Get Adequate Speech and Language Therapy
The more therapy your child gets, the better their likelihood of success. Studies show that children who get therapy at least twice a week are more likely to be able to start annunciating better faster.
Choosing Between Group and Individual Therapy
It’s important to provide speech therapy (especially articulation therapy) on an individual basis as this has been proven to be more effective for articulation disorders. This is primarily because children don’t get as much individual therapy while in a group. As such, it’s easy to miss what’s causing the articulation error – something that’s different for each child. It’s also important to note that each child also learns differently, which is also something that groups aren’t created to address.
Making Sure you Have a Highly-Equipped Therapist
Bad therapy wastes time and can worsen the problem. It’s important to choose a therapist who is highly skilled in receptive language disorder and can develop a good rapport with your child. When either component is missing, you’ll have issues. Sometimes this can even cause your child to become fearful to the point they’re resistant to therapy. This will then take the right therapist a lot of additional time to warm up to your child before they can even start therapy with them.
When you’re ready to find high-quality therapy in Plano, Texas to help your child overcome receptive language disorder make sure you contact Speech & OT. Over the years their therapists have been successful in helping many children overcome this disorder. Your child should be next.