Summary of a speech therapy subgroup lesson for children with stuttering of senior preschool age

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Stuttering is a speech disorder that is caused by convulsions in different areas of the speech apparatus.
It is accompanied by a violation of the smoothness, rhythm and tempo of speech and most often occurs in children aged 2–3 years. At this age, it can go away on its own, but this does not happen for everyone. Therefore, it is better to immediately seek help from a speech therapist - timely correction of stuttering in children will quickly eliminate the defect. In this article we will talk about effective exercises for stuttering.

Causes of stuttering in children

At risk are children whose parents have diseases of the nervous system, infectious or somatic nature. Children who suffer from nightmares, enuresis, as well as those who are anxious, irritable, vulnerable, or with a weak nervous system stutter more often. Bilingual children may also stutter.

The following factors can provoke stuttering in children:

1. Features of intrauterine development. Difficult pregnancy, fetal asphyxia, injuries during childbirth;
2. The baby's health status. Injuries, metabolic and trophic disorders, infectious diseases in a newborn;
3. Physiological factors. Traumatic brain injury, concussion, organic brain disorders, intoxication, as well as diseases that weaken the central apparatus of speech (typhoid, measles, whooping cough, rickets, helminths, diseases of the throat and nose);
4. Psychosocial factors. Fright, horror, fear in the baby, dysfunctional situation in the family (conflicts, stress), improper upbringing (pampering, punishment, unbalanced upbringing or upbringing of the “correct” child), the predominance of negative emotions and tension, severe mental trauma, affect;
5. Features of speech formation. Parents did not pay attention to the fact that the baby spoke quickly or while inhaling, pronouncing sounds incorrectly. Excessive speech development activities with a child can also cause stuttering. For example, if parents overloaded the child with learning or used materials intended for older children;
6. Another factor that provokes stuttering is the fast, nervous speech of the child’s closest relatives. He can imitate them, just like his stuttering relatives. If your baby has a dominant left hand, you should not retrain him, as this can also provoke a violation.

A strict, demanding and inconsistent attitude towards a child from parents, educators and other adults can also become a trigger for the development of stuttering.

Speech classes

Speech classes are built in the form of conversations, viewing didactic materials, filmstrips, and working on crafts.
During classes you should use books, toys, and board games. At the same time, parents should monitor their children’s speech, help them express their thoughts correctly, without focusing on the speech defect. Speech classes should be conducted regularly and in accordance with the principle from simple to complex, from familiar to unfamiliar. From the simplest situational forms to a detailed statement - this is the way to overcome stuttering. This is a very difficult task, and success here accompanies those parents who are not stopped by the first failures.

Typically, overcoming stuttering in preschoolers at home takes 3-4 months. All this time you need to be close to the child and “live” with him all the stages of speech re-education. Never give up hope of improving your stuttering. Remember: stuttering is a removable disease.

The course of overcoming stuttering is conventionally divided into three periods: preparatory, training, consolidative.

Preparation period

This period includes medical, recreational and protective measures: visiting a doctor, speech therapist, organizing a work and rest regime. At this time, it is necessary to limit the speech communication of a stuttering child with other children. Family members should carefully ensure that their own speech is clear, expressive and unhurried. It is necessary to draw up a plan for working with your child every day and make notes on its implementation. They have casual conversations with the child about how together (with mom and dad) he will learn to speak correctly and beautifully, and tell interesting fairy tales or stories. At the same time, play a children's record for your child or let him listen to a tape recording of the fairy tales “Teremok”, “Kolobok”, “Three Bears” and others. Games, drawing, and modeling help to prepare him for the upcoming speech work. Practice correct speech while walking and playing outdoors.

During the preparatory period, simple speech classes are organized - three to four times a day, lasting 10-15 minutes each. It is better to start classes with speech exercises. The child is asked to count to five, to ten, and then, following his parents, say short phrases: “I am learning to speak slowly.” "I'm learning to speak loudly."

Excerpts from children's poems can serve as material for speech exercises. The purpose of speech exercises is to prepare the child for the upcoming lesson, to make him feel that he can speak correctly. It is important that during a conversation the child does not tense up, does not raise his shoulders, and breathes silently and calmly.

After exercise, speech classes begin, which consist of special exercises that normalize speech. Speech exercises are built in a certain sequence - from simple forms of speech to complex ones.

Conjugate speech is the easiest for children who stutter. The child and his parents simultaneously name the objects shown in the pictures, the letters of the alphabet, speak short phrases (based on the pictures), and recite poetry. The training method is quite simple. While looking at the picture, at the same time as your child, smoothly and leisurely say: “This is Mishka. The bear is bathing. Mishka has big paws."

You can take any toy and tell what parts it consists of: “This is a Lena doll. Lena has eyes, a mouth, a nose. Lena has a new dress and white shoes.” Seeing objects in front of him, the child expresses his thoughts easier and more confidently.

The lesson can end with playing lotto with pictures or reading a poem. As soon as the child is fluent in conjugate speech, move on to the next form of speech.

Reflected speech is a more complex form that allows storytelling based on objects, pictures, toys. The parents say the phrase, the child repeats: “I have a pencil.” "I'm drawing". “Once upon a time there was a goat, and she had seven kids.” With children it is advisable to recite “Teremok”, “Kolobok”, M. Prishvin’s story “The Brave Hedgehog”, A. Barto’s poems “Bunny”, “Bear”. With older preschoolers you need to learn the alphabet, and you should also teach them to read and write using the ABC.

During this period, exercises for coordinating words with movement are introduced. March in a circle with your child: “We learned to count: one, two, three, four, five.” And so three times. Or another exercise. Give your child a ball and count each time the ball is thrown on the floor. The lesson ends with a speech board game. For example, you can prepare any subject lotto. Show your child the picture and calmly say: “I have a squirrel.” Then you just show the picture and the child names it.

This is a schematic lesson plan for the education of the reflected form of speech, based on which you can create subsequent lessons yourself.

During this period, learn N. Naydenova’s poem “Spring” with your child. Use days of the week, months, seasons of the year as speech exercises. If your child reads, choose folk tales and interesting poems for him.

After two or three lessons, the child himself begins to be active and confidently repeats the text, willingly plays, throws the ball up, hits the floor or wall. The movement is accompanied by words. Counting rhymes, jokes, and riddles are especially convenient for such exercises (they can be found in the magazines “Funny Pictures” and “Murzilka”).

This concludes the preparatory period. Its duration may vary depending on the success of mastering the conjugate-reflective form of speech. Fluency in them provides the basis for the transition to the next period - training. There are often cases when, already at the initial stage, certain forms of stuttering (especially mild ones) are successfully overcome. For preventive purposes, classes should be continued. However, the daily routine and gentle regime should remain the same. After a month, the child can be taken to a regular kindergarten.

Corrective program for stuttering in children

Stuttering treatment is approached in a comprehensive manner. It depends on the type of disorder - it is neurosis-like or logoneurosis. Therefore, the speech therapist selects the complex individually for each little patient. In any case, the program includes a variety of exercises for stuttering - to establish proper breathing, work with the voice, develop fine motor skills, and strengthen the muscles of the speech apparatus.

Complex for the formation of correct breathing

The goal of working with a child who stutters is to form a diaphragmatic exhalation. We do each exercise for 2–3 minutes.

Breathe with your belly . The baby lies on his back and places his hand on his upper abdomen. Begins to breathe with his stomach. You need to breathe calmly. To make it clearer, you can put a toy on your baby’s tummy.

Let's blow out the candle . The baby holds a strip of paper near his lips (at a distance of 10 cm). Then he gently blows on it so that the piece of paper moves slightly to the side. Try to blow as long as possible.

We depict a tire . The child spreads his arms in front of him in a circle. He exhales and at the same time slowly says “shhhhh” and crosses his arms, wrapping them around his shoulders.

We deflate the balloon . The exercise is similar to the previous one, but instead of the sound “sh-sh-sh” the baby says “f-f-f”.

We pump the tire . The small patient clenches his hands into fists in front of him and slowly leans forward, while pronouncing the sound “ssss” as he exhales.

The fly is buzzing . The child spreads his arms to the sides and back - imitates the wings of a fly. Then, while exhaling, he says “w-w-w” and lowers his hands down.

The crow caws. The baby raises his arms up to the sides. Then at the same time he slowly lowers them, squats and says “K-a-a-a-a-a-r.” The slower he descended and the longer he croaked, the better.

Geese-geese. The baby puts his hands on his belt, slowly leans forward, but does not lower his head down. Then he says, “Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakenk” The longer it gets, the better.

Inhalation during each exercise is voluntary when returning to the starting position.

A set of exercises with a child to practice their voice

The baby takes the initial position of the speech apparatus - as for pronouncing the sound “a”, but with his mouth closed (closed lips). The teeth are open, the tongue is spread out and the tip rests on the lower incisors.

Important points: lower the larynx, open the pharynx, as when yawning, raise the velum and small uvula. The neck, arms, head and whole body are relaxed.

Exercise one - mooing. The baby inhales through his nose and, as he exhales, pronounces the sound “m” and sends a stream of air so that the sound resonates on the upper front teeth. Important: the sound is light and short, the lips and upper jaw vibrate if you put your hand on them. This means that the sound has hit the bones of the face - the mask - and is reflected in it.

Exercise two - adding vowels. The starting position is the same, but now the child says the sound “ma”. That is, he first pronounces “m” and then adds “a” - the lips open, the lower jaw drops. But you need to be careful not to let your voice become nasal. Pronounce the sound “ma” in different tones.

Exercise three - we train speech intonation. The starting position is the same. Now you need to add vowels to the sound “m” - “a”, “o”, “u”. It should come out “m-a-o-u.” Then repeat the same thing with the sounds “i”, “e”, “s” - “m-i-e-s”. Avoid tension, clearly articulate all sounds. Vowels should not be extended and should be as similar as possible to a conversational melody.

Exercise four - perform speech and singing intonation. The baby inhales through his nose, pronounces the sound “m” and combines it with any three vowels (for example, “ma” - “mo” - “mu”). Then he inhales again. Then, in one exhalation, he says, for example, “mi” - “me” - “we”.

Important: do not speed up, send sound into the mask, first pronounce all sounds at the same height, then repeat at different ones.

Exercise five - pronounce the consonants “zh”, “z” and “n”. In terms of timbre, “zh” tends to the chest sound, “z” - mixed, “n” - facial, or upper. During pronunciation, sounds must vibrate in the corresponding resonator zones.

Exercise six - we hum like a ship. The baby says the sound “u” in different variations, imitating a small, medium and large ship. That is, he must use three pitches of his voice. The sequence is not important.

Exercise seven - play ball. The child imagines a ball of any size, “takes” it in his hands and hits the floor. At the same time, he counts each blow to 10. Then he counts again, but this time he throws the ball up. The count is carried out as you exhale. When the “ball” hits the floor, the baby’s voice will be lower, and when it flies up, it will be higher. Important: no need to pull your neck up or strain while counting.

Exercise eight - call the dog. The kid imagines that he has a dog and it ran away. You need to call her from different distances - from afar, closer and very close. Let the kid come up with a nickname for the dog and start calling. First, he calls her by name “from afar” 10 times, then pauses and repeats, but “closer”, then pauses again and again calls the dog 10 times when she is already “nearby”. The “closer” the dog comes, the slower you need to say its name.

Exercise nine - calling the dog in one breath. The exercise is similar to the previous one, but you need to call the dog by name without stopping, in one breath. We start with a high voice, moving to a lower one.

Exercise ten - count to ten. In one breath, the baby counts to 10 in three ranges of his voice. After every ten we pause and continue counting in a different key.

Complex for training muscles for stuttering

We offer classes for children to train articulatory and facial muscles. They involve tensing and relaxing different muscle groups. First, the baby tenses them and holds the position for 5 - 10 seconds, after which he relaxes. So baby:

1. Throws his head back, strains his neck, then relaxes his neck and head and lowers it down;
2. Wrinkles forehead, raises eyebrows;
3. Frowns heavily, tensing the muscles between the eyes;
4. Closes his eyes tightly;
5. Clenches teeth forcefully;
6. Smiles widely, baring his teeth and tensing his cheeks;
7. Pulls out lips;
8. Presses the tongue against the front teeth;
9. Pulls the tongue back so that tension appears in it, the bottom of the mouth and neck;
10. Yawns three times - lightly, deeply and very deeply. During the last yawn, he closes his eyes and stretches the muscles of his throat and mouth.

In this complex, it is important to focus on the sensations in tense muscles, perform all exercises for stuttering in strict sequence, and relax the muscles well at the end of each exercise. Perform tasks calmly, slowly, but at the same time rhythmically, and do not forget to breathe in the process.

Symptoms of stuttering

Stuttering occurs in different ways, but identifying the disease is not difficult. It manifests itself either in the obsessive repetition of sounds and syllables, or in involuntary stops and delays, often accompanied by convulsions of the speech organs. The spasms affect the vocal cords, muscles of the pharynx, tongue, and lips. The presence of spasms in the speech stream is the main phenomenon of stuttering. They vary in frequency, location and duration. The severity of stuttering depends on the nature of the seizures. The tension in the organs of pronunciation does not allow a person who stutters to conduct a conversation accurately, clearly, and rhythmically. The voice also becomes upset - in people who stutter, it is uncertain, hoarse, and weak.

There is an opinion that the basis of stuttering is blocking (turning off) voice production. Indeed, a number of experiments confirm this idea. When a child stutters, he spends a lot of physical strength. When speaking, his face becomes covered with red spots and sticky cold sweat, and after speaking he often feels tired.

Individual sounds, syllables, words become so difficult that children avoid using them, as a result of which speech becomes impoverished, simplified, becomes inaccurate, and incomprehensible. Particularly great difficulties arise when reproducing coherent stories. And to make their situation easier, kids begin to use sounds, words or even whole phrases that have nothing to do with the subject of the statement. These "alien" sounds and words are called gimmicks. “A”, “e”, “here”, “well”, “and” are used as speech tricks.

In addition to speech, children who stutter also develop motor tricks: children clench their fists, step from foot to foot, wave their arms, shrug their shoulders, sniffle, etc. These auxiliary movements make it easier for the child to speak, and later, when they become established, they become an integral part of the speech. speech act. Extra movements disrupt coordinated motor skills and load the psyche with additional work.

Some preschoolers develop a fear of speaking. Even before starting a conversation, the child begins to worry that he will stutter, that he will not be understood, that he will be judged poorly. Uncertainty in speech, wariness, and suspiciousness appear.

Children are painfully aware of the difference between themselves and their peers. If, in addition, their comrades laugh at them, imitate them, and adults scold them for speaking incorrectly, stuttering children withdraw into themselves, become irritable, fearful, and they develop a feeling of inferiority, which further depresses the psyche and aggravates stuttering.

Psychological layers can be so pronounced that first of all one has to direct efforts to streamline behavior, and only then to fight stuttering.

People who stutter have poor coordination in their movements. Some have motor restlessness and disinhibition, others have angularity and stiffness. This is why people who stutter usually avoid crafts that require fine finger movements. But the signs of stuttering do not end there. People who stutter develop undesirable character traits - irritability, tearfulness, resentment, isolation, distrust, negativism, stubbornness and even aggressiveness.

Preschoolers who stutter are more susceptible to colds than ordinary children; their sleep and appetite are more often disturbed. If we talk about the dynamics of stuttering, it is striking in a number of characteristic features - the variability of the clinical picture, adaptability and variability. Often a more complex form of speech is pronounced more freely than a simplified one.

In the spring-summer period, stuttering smoothes out, in the autumn-winter period it intensifies. In an unfamiliar environment it manifests itself more strongly than in a familiar one. The severity of stuttering is also influenced by the situation in which the child finds himself. In kindergarten it gets worse; when surrounded by friends and family, the child feels freer. In labor classes, speech is much more confident than in native language classes.

Stuttering gets worse as fatigue increases. At the beginning of the day the defect appears less grossly than at the end. Hence the conclusion that classes with stutterers should be conducted in the morning.

When a child is alone, he does not stutter. Children do not stutter when singing, reading poetry, or reciting memorized stories. From the foregoing, we can conclude that in order to correct the defect, it is necessary to influence not only the speech of the stutterer, but also the personality as a whole.

Expanding your vocal range

The following games for children who stutter help reinforce what they have learned and teach them to vary the intonation and timbre of their voice, which is very important for full speech:

1. Count from 1 to 10 at different voice pitches;
2. "Motor ship". To the sound U we pronounce the sound of the whistle of 3 ships: large, small and medium in any order;
3. Say the phrase “I order you” with different intonations: angry, friendly, indifferent;
4. 2 people participate. One says “I will punish you!” with a gradual increase in timbre, and the second says “No” with a decrease.

Any exercises where you need to select different intonation, volume, speed of speech and its emotional coloring are suitable.

Silent games

Such activities are good because they help relieve excessive excitability. In children with stuttering, this helps to remove the habit of rapid and incorrect speech and prepare the nervous system for more complex exercises. Patience and perseverance are cultivated.

Most effective games:

1. "Watch". We put an hourglass in a prominent place and announce that the tongue is tired and needs to rest. While the sand is being poured, the baby is busy with drawing, puzzles and other things. Children prefer the collective version of the game, when the one who remains silent the longest wins;
2. "Good Wizard" We imagine that there is a good and generous giant in the city, but now he is sleeping. Therefore, all people remain silent, no one speaks. But you can build houses from cubes, play with construction sets, and sculpt. It's also a great idea to silently draw a sleeping wizard. As an encouragement, you can present a “guard of honor” medal;
3. "Theater". We suggest you “go” to a performance where you need to sit quietly and not talk. But you can show dolls or soft toys pictures. This exercise has many variations, for example, the library, where you also need to remain silent.

You can invent any options. The main conditions are maintaining silence and an exciting activity for the child, in which he can do without questions and answers for some time.