Speech, Language, & Song
If you are a parent who has worked with a pediatric speech-language pathologist (SLP), chances are you’ve heard some singing in your child’s sessions. There are many wonderful reasons to use songs in speech therapy, especially with young children. One of which, is teaching vocabulary! Especially for young children in the early intervention and preschool populations, expanding vocabulary is a common goal. I love to use songs when working on this goal and I often change lyrics to popular tunes to do so. Here’s an example, let’s take a popular children’s song, “The Wheels on the Bus,” and make it fit a daily bath time routine!
As a reminder, here are the original lyrics:
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round,
The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town.
We’ll switch out “on the bus” with “in the bath,” and add relevant vocabulary and environmental sounds to make it sound like this:
The toys in the bath go splash splash splash, splash splash splash, splash splash splash,
The toys in the bath go splash splash splash, in the bath!
Here’s another idea for targeting vocabulary and prepositions (in, on, under):
The shampoo in the bath goes on my head, on my head, on my head
The shampoo in the bath goes on my head, on my head!
Let’s try one more example to target expanding the child’s repertoire of action words. We’ll use the song “The Farmer in the Dell.”
As a reminder, here are the original lyrics:
The farmer in the dell, the farmer in the dell,
High – ho the derry -o, the farmer in the dell.
The farmer milks the cow, the farmer milks the cow,
High – ho the derry – o, the farmer milks the cow.
In the example activity of playing with your child using some dolls or character toys, we could change the lyrics around like so:
My dolly likes to dance, my dolly likes to dance
High – ho the derry -o my dolly likes to dance!
Bluey likes to run, bluey likes to run,
High – ho the derry – o, Bluey likes to run!
Because children’s songs tend to follow a simple melody that repeats over and over, they are perfect for teaching many parts of language. Melody increases focus and encourages varied pitch patterns, and the repetitive word patterns allow for many opportunities for children to practice target vocabulary. Most importantly, it’s fun! Happy singing, everyone!
Special Note: If your child is a gestalt language processor (GLP), they are likely very musical! GLP’s pick up on the intonation of overheard language, which can sound like its own melody based on the pitch changes and rhythm of the input. However, depending upon which stage of Natural Language Acquisition (NLA) your child is currently in, it is possible that a song or parts of a song may be stored as a “whole” script, or gestalt, as opposed to a series of flexible, single words.
Therefore, look out for signs that your child does not want the lyrics changed and follow your child’s lead! In my work with preschool and school-aged children, I’ve had some GLP’s respond really well and playfully to changing lyrics of their favorite songs, however I have also had some children show signs of stress, as they delight in the song or song part as it is, not a changed version. When in doubt, talk with your child’s SLP to learn more.
Not sure if your child is a GLP? Want more support using songs to help your child’s language development? Contact us at Creative Speech Therapy for a consultation!
Written by: Christie Haggerty M.S. CCC-SLP, TSSLD
Speech-Language Pathologist/Feeding Therapist