1. Builds Communication Skills Naturally:
Through games, toys, and pretend play, children are able to practice sounds, gestures, words, sentences, and conversation in a more natural element. This in turn helps children use their newly acquired skills more confidently and encourages generalization of these skills across environments.
2. Encourages Social Interaction:
Speech therapy for kids isn’t just about talking—it’s about connecting. Play-based therapy facilitates joint attention and shared experiences, the foundational skills for social interactions and reciprocal communication. Play helps children practice turn-taking, sharing, listening, and understanding social cues, which are essential for building relationships. And play-based therapy in a group setting with other kids with similar goals can be just the thing to help your child move to the next level.
3. Increases Motivation and Engagement
When therapy feels like play, kids are more eager or willing to join in, try new communication strategies, and keep practicing between sessions. Through play, children may feel less like they are being pressured into learning—especially if it is something that is perceived as “hard”—and can relax and have fun in order to take on new concepts. This is one reason why play-based speech therapy often leads to faster progress.
4. Supports Experiential Learning:
Many children are more visual, or even kinesthetic, learners. Hands-on, playful activities engages a child’s curiosity, often making it easier to understand and remember new vocabulary, grammar, and language concepts. Learning through experience is a powerful and effective method in developing speech and language skills.
5. Boosts Confidence
Small things make a big difference! Every success, great or small, during play builds self-esteem. Skills like learning to share, compromise, negotiate, and resolve conflict can be practiced through play. Children feel proud when they master a new sound, word, or social skill, and that confidence can carry over into school, home, and social settings.
5 Benefits of Play-Based Therapy
At Therapy SPOT, we believe children learn best when they’re having fun! That’s why we take a play-based approach to speech therapy—an engaging, evidence-based method that supports speech and language development for kids of all ages. By turning learning into play, we aim to make our therapy sessions something your child will look forward to every session. Here are 5 ways Play Based-Speech and/or Language Therapy can benefit your child:
If you’re looking for speech therapy for kids that’s fun, supportive, and backed by research, Therapy SPOT would love to help! Lisa Downey is a certified and licensed Speech Language Pathologist who specializes in and takes a play-based approach in all of her sessions. Reach out today to schedule a 20 minute consultation to learn how speech therapy can help your child flourish—and have fun along the way!
📍 Therapy SPOT is conveniently located in downtown Fishers, Indiana (right off of I-69) and offers in-person evaluations, consultations, and individual and group therapy. Monthly home consultations are also available for parent coaching.
Top 5 Benefits of Myofunctional Therapy
Top 5 Benefits of
Myofunctional Therapy
Discover how myofunctional therapy can improve breathing, speech, sleep, and more.
At Therapy SPOT, we believe in empowering everyone of all ages to thrive through evidence-based, whole-person care. One of the most impactful approaches we offer is myofunctional therapy—a gentle, exercise-based treatment that targets the muscles of the face, mouth, and throat.
If you’ve been wondering whether this type of therapy is right for you or your child, here are the top five benefits of myofunctional therapy to help you decide.
1. Better Breathing Through the Nose
Myofunctional therapy helps to correct chronic mouth breathing by retraining the tongue and facial muscles to support nasal breathing. This simple change can improve oxygen intake, support immune function, and reduce daytime fatigue. For growing children, nasal breathing also promotes proper facial development.
2. Improved Speech & Articulation
When the tongue rests too low or pushes forward (also called a tongue thrust), it can impact speech clarity. Myofunctional therapy helps to correct proper tongue posture and improve lingual movement, which can then improve progress in traditional speech therapy—especially with sounds like /s/, /z/, /sh/, /ch/, /j/, /l/, and /r/ (including vowelized/vocalic r)
3. More Restful Sleep
If your child snores, grinds his/her teeth, wakes frequently, or seems tired or cranky despite a full night’s sleep, myofunctional therapy for sleep might help. Strengthening the oral muscles can reduce snoring and open the airway, promoting deeper, more restorative sleep—for both kids and adults.
4. Safer, More Coordinated Eating
Eating should be easy—but for many, issues like gagging, slow chewing, or messy eating can be signs of an inefficient swallow. Myofunctional therapy targets the muscles involved in feeding and swallowing, making mealtimes happier and safer.
5. Supports Facial & Dental Development
Proper tongue posture doesn’t just help with speech—it also supports the healthy development of the jaw, palate, and facial structure. Myofunctional therapy can be a powerful tool in combination with orthodontic treatment, and may even reduce the need for braces or expanders in some cases.
Is Myofunctional Therapy Right for You or Your Child?
At Therapy SPOT, licensed speech-language pathologist, Lisa Downey specialize in myofunctional therapy for children, teens, and even adults! We take a warm and fun, individualized approach to help you or your child thrive—at home, in school, in sports, or at work.
📍 Located in Fishers, Indiana, we offer in-person and virtual consultations.
Ready to learn more? Contact us or schedule a free consultation today.
“Myofunctional Therapy” is such a buzz word right now. It seems like everyone is talking about it, and with access to social media, there is a lot of information (some good, some not so good) at everyone’s fingertips. But what is it, and how can it help? If you’ve been wondering whether this type of therapy is right for you or your child, here are the top five benefits of myofunctional therapy to help you decide.
1. Better Breathing:
Myofunctional therapy helps to reduce or even eliminate chronic mouth breathing by retraining the tongue, lips, and other muscles in order to facilitate nasal breathing. This impactful change can improve oxygen intake, support immune function, and reduce daytime crankiness and fatigue. For growing children, nasal breathing can also promote proper development of the jaw, palate, and other facial features.
2. Improved Speech & Articulation:
When the tongue rests too low or pushes forward (also called a tongue thrust), it can adversely affect the clarity of speech sounds. Myofunctional therapy works to correct tongue posture and lingual movements, which can then accelerate progress made with “traditional” speech therapy—especially with speech sounds /s/, /z/, /sh/, /ch/, /j/, /l/, and /r/ (including vocalic/vowelized r).
3. Safer & More Efficient Eating:
Has feeding or ‘picky eating’ been an issue for your child? Problems with gagging, slow or laborious chewing, or being a messy eater are often signs of oral motor weakness which can lead to an inefficient or improper swallowing pattern (such as a reverse swallow). Myofunctional therapy targets the muscles involved in feeding and swallowing, often making mealtimes happier and safer.
4. Restful Sleep:
If you or your child snores, grinds or clenches teeth, wakes up throughout the night, or seems tired, foggy, or cranky despite a full night’s sleep, myofunctional therapy may help. Strengthening the mouth muscles, correcting resting tongue posture, and working on an efficient and ideal breathing pattern can help open the airway and promote deeper, more restorative sleep—for both kids and adults.
5. Facial & Dental Development:
Proper tongue position doesn’t just help with speech—it also supports the optimal development of the jaw, palate, and facial structure. Myofunctional therapy can be a complementary technique to orthodontic treatment in helping to correct muscle imbalances to help ensure the teeth remain in their corrected position. In some cases, myofunctional therapy may even reduce the time or eliminate the need for braces or expanders.
Is Myofunctional Therapy Right for You or Your Child? At Therapy SPOT, we believe in empowering our clients and families with holistic, evidence-based care. One of the most effective interventions we offer is myofunctional therapy—a gentle, fun, exercise-based treatment that targets the muscles of the mouth and face. For children younger than four, we take an age-appropriate oral motor and feeding approach until the child is older and more capable of actively participating in myofunctional therapy.
Want to learn more? Schedule a free 20 minute consultation today. Lisa Downey is a certified and licensed speech-language pathologist who specializes in myofunctional therapy for children, teens, and adults. She takes a warm, fun, and individualized approach to help you or your child succeed!
📍 Therapy SPOT is conveniently located in downtown Fishers, Indiana (right off of I-69) and offers in-person evaluations, consultations, and therapy, as well as virtual therapy for those who are unable to meet in person.