Practicing Speech Sounds at Home

Speech-language pathologists often give families home practice for speech sounds, and a 2025 review of 29 papers explains why: the amount of intervention a child gets matters for therapy to work. That practice follows the sounds the therapist chose, and the same review found that planning it flexibly with parents helps them fit it into ordinary days.

What you’ll learn

• Why home practice follows the targets your child’s therapist sets
• Ways to fold practice into meals, errands and books
• What to say when a word comes out wrong
• What studies of therapy sessions can and cannot tell parents

How Do I Practice Speech Sounds at Home?

Start from the speech-language pathologist’s plan, since practice at home is meant to carry it into the rest of the week. Speech sound treatment, as described for families by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), may include learning the correct way to make sounds, learning to tell when sounds are right or wrong, and working on sounds in different words. Knowing which of these your child is doing in sessions tells you what the practice at home is for.

Home practice adds to therapy and does not stand in for it. A 2025 scoping review of how therapists and parents work together, for children up to 5 years 11 months, explained that the amount of intervention matters for speech sound therapy to work and that working with parents is one way therapists add to it. The review concluded that emerging evidence supports therapists and parents working together on home practice.

Speech sounds are one strand of speech and language development, and the difference between a single hard sound and a pattern across many is explained in why some sounds are harder for children to say.

While Waiting for Therapy to Start

Before treatment, ASHA tells families it is important to have a child’s hearing checked, to make sure there is no hearing loss, so a hearing check is worth arranging if your child has not had one. ASHA’s everyday tips for talking with young children apply whether or not therapy has started, and if the bigger worry is that people outside the family struggle to follow your child, there is more on hard-to-understand speech at age three.

Start With the Sounds Your Child Is Working on Now

Practice at home follows what therapy is working on at this stage, and the speech-language pathologist is the person who knows what that is. A 2025 review found that clear information from the therapist helps parents carry out home practice the way it was designed, which researchers call fidelity, and helps them stay engaged with it, so it is worth asking for the targets in a form you can keep.

A few questions make the targets clear: which sounds are the focus for now, what a good attempt sounds like, and what to do when a word comes out wrong. There are more questions to ask about a therapist’s approach, from how targets are chosen to what home practice should look like.

From clinical practice

Speech-language pathologists choose sound targets in a deliberate order, at a level a child can manage. That can mean starting well away from the sound that stands out most at home.

Home practice tends to drift toward the hardest sound instead, the one that sounds furthest off. It does the most good when it stays with the targets therapy is working on at this stage, because the order is part of the plan.

Fitting Practice Into Meals, Errands and Books

Practice can happen inside things a family already does. The 2025 review found that approaching home practice flexibly, and together with parents, lets families fit it into daily life. One approach ASHA describes for clinicians works target sounds into ordinary activities, such as a restaurant menu, signs at the grocery store or favorite books, by asking the child about words that contain the sound.

That approach comes from therapy, so if your child’s speech-language pathologist uses it, ask how it should look at home: which words to point out, and how to respond when the sound comes out wrong. Telling the therapist what an ordinary week looks like for your family, including the busy parts, gives them what they need to build practice around it.

Responding When a Sound Comes Out Wrong

For children aged 2 to 4, ASHA’s advice to parents centers on how adults talk: saying words clearly so your child hears a good model, and saying back what your child said, so they know you understood, with a little added. ASHA also says baby talk is fine sometimes, as long as the adult word gets used too.

In one approach ASHA describes for clinicians, the clinician recasts a child’s errors, saying the word back correctly, and does not ask the child to copy it. Other approaches do use imitation, so whether to ask your child to say a word again depends on the plan, and the speech-language pathologist can show you the version that fits it. Either way, the correct word can come back to your child inside an ordinary reply.

Why Studies of Therapy Sessions Give No Home Schedule

Studies of how often children are seen describe sessions run by a speech-language pathologist, not practice at home. A 2018 review of 199 research papers on phonological intervention, published from 1979 to 2016, found that most of the studies gave therapy two to three times a week, one-on-one, in sessions of 30 to 60 minutes with about 100 attempts at the target sound.

In a 2013 trial with 54 preschool children with speech sound disorders, those seen by a clinician three times a week for 8 weeks made significantly greater gains than those seen once a week for 24 weeks, with the same total number of sessions. Both findings are about clinic sessions, so neither gives a number of minutes or days for practice at home, which is a question to settle with your child’s speech-language pathologist.

One small study shows what parent practice alongside a clinician can look like. A 2020 study followed five children aged 3 years 3 months to 5 years 11 months with moderate-to-severe phonological difficulties, each seen in the clinic once a week for 8 weeks, while a parent practiced with the child at home after a 60-minute training session.

All five children improved on the words they practiced. Three carried those gains over to words they had not practiced to a large degree, one to a moderate degree and one not at all, and the trained parents delivered the practice competently, both in the clinic and at home. The authors concluded that the combined approach was effective for some children.

When Practice Turns Into a Battle

A plan that has become a struggle is worth raising with the speech-language pathologist. The 2025 review identified seven themes in how therapists and parents work together on home practice: tailoring it to the individual child and family, setting expectations, daily life, what parents know, how parents are involved, the relationship with the therapist, and supporting parents to deliver it.

Six parents interviewed for a 2019 study described home practice as complex: it changed over time, they took on different roles, it felt important, and the practical side of fitting it in had to be managed. The researchers concluded that therapists need to work together with families when they set home practice, so a plan that is not working at home is useful information, not a sign that anything went wrong.

Common Questions From Parents

How Often Should We Practice Speech Sounds at Home?

The research on how often children are seen is about clinic sessions, so it gives no schedule for home. Your child’s speech-language pathologist is the person to ask, because they know the targets and can plan around your week.

Should I Make My Child Repeat Words They Say Wrong?

Approaches differ. ASHA’s tips are to speak clearly, model the word, and repeat your child’s words back with a little added. One clinician approach recasts errors without asking for imitation while others use it, so follow your speech-language pathologist’s lead.

What Should We Practice?

Practice the targets your child’s speech-language pathologist has set, in the way they showed you. ASHA describes speech sound treatment as learning how to make sounds, learning to tell whether they are right or wrong, and using them in different words, so ask which part your child is on.

How Can I Fit Practice Into an Ordinary Day?

Planning home practice flexibly with the therapist lets parents fit it into daily life, a 2025 review found. Ask whether the targets can join routines you already have, such as sharing a favorite book, looking at a menu or doing the grocery shopping.

What If My Child Refuses to Practice?

Tell the speech-language pathologist. Fitting practice to each child and family was one of the key themes in a 2025 review of home practice research, so practice that has become a struggle can be reshaped with the therapist instead of pushed through alone.

Can Practice at Home Replace Speech Therapy?

No. Home practice sits alongside sessions with a speech-language pathologist, who sets the targets and shows the parent what to do. In a 2020 study of five children, parents practiced while each child kept a weekly clinic session, and the combination was effective for some.

Reviewed by Monica d’Errico-Franklin, M.S., CCC-SLP

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