The Importance of Home Practice in Speech Therapy

Starting speech therapy can be intimidating for many people at first. It is unfamiliar and requires consistency and dedication. To make matters worse, your speech pathologist then assigns you homework to complete outside of your sessions! When therapy is already challenging and time-consuming, why on earth do we need to do more work? Well, it’s time to change your perception of “homework.” We’ve pulled together some helpful points to understand why home practice is a necessary component to rehabilitation.

When your speech pathologist assigns you “homework,” it’s not necessarily the kind you did when you were in school. There is a purpose behind everything your clinician provides you. It’s not completing meaningless worksheets or games. It’s meant to help heal your brain!

Our brain can heal itself, but there are a few things that need to happen in order for this to occur. In order to relearn the skills that were lost from a stroke or brain injury speech therapy needs to promote neuroplasticity. This is the reconnection of neural networks in the brain after an injury. To do this, we need to focus on a few things. Repetition, consistency, and relevance. Home practice can do all of these things.

Repetition: Just like when you learn a new skill, the more you do it, the better you become. Practicing daily, even when you don’t have therapy, gives your brain enough repetition to make new connections and repair old ones.

Consistency: Not only do you need to do things often, but you need to do them over long periods of time. It’s not enough to come to therapy and complete a home program for a few weeks. It typically requires months to see significant improvement.

Relevance: The skills you are learning need to be relevant to your daily life. This means that if your problem is finding words in conversation, then you have to actually have conversation! Home practice will be tailored to your daily life needs to ensure your improve.

By completing home practice on a regular basis, patients are able to achieve recovery at a faster rate. So when your therapist assigns you homework, remember that they have a few goals in mind…

• Strengthen the skills being practiced in your therapy sessions

• Increase your ability to complete the practiced tasks correctly, timely, and with less effort over time

• Maintain your newly established skills

• Continue to work towards independence and improved quality of life

And that’s why you’re coming to therapy, right? So make sure you take the time to do your home practice daily, your brain will thank you for it!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Annie Rabe, MS, CCC-SLP

Annie is a speech-language pathologist with experience in many settings. From acute care to home care, she has helped her patients get back to the activities they love doing. She believes that developing a strong relationship with her clients and their family is the foundation for successful therapy.

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