Free Home Therapy Programs for Children
A home program turns real therapy techniques into small daily steps a parent can run at home. Each of the 23 programs below gives you a week-by-week plan for one skill — talking, behaviour, focus, movement, sensory needs, sleep, reading — plus what to try first, how to tell it is working, the signs that mean you should ask for professional help, and a printable PDF to keep. All free.
Are home programs the same as therapy?
No. A home program is a set of therapy-informed activities a parent runs at home. It is not an assessment, not a diagnosis, and not a replacement for seeing a therapist. It is a way to keep helping your child between sessions, while you wait for an appointment, or when getting to a clinic is genuinely hard.
Every program spells out its own “when to get help” signs, and if you recognise those, please act on them. These are written by the team at our children’s therapy centre in Multan and given away because most families start long before they ever reach a clinic. Not sure where to begin? Start with the free 2-minute check.
How do I run a home program at home?
Pick one program that matches what you are seeing. Read the first week, choose two or three steps, and practise them inside routines you already have — meals, bath, the walk to school. Five to ten minutes on most days beats one long session at the weekend. Move on to the next week when the steps feel easy.
Evaluate
Use the 2-minute check above, our milestone checklists or the which-therapy guide to get a clear picture of where your child is.
Follow a program
Pick the program that matches, then work through its gentle weekly roadmap at your child’s own pace.
Track & continue
Watch for the progress signs, download the PDF, and get in touch any time you’d like a hand from us.
Little and often is the whole trick, and the hardest part is remembering it on a bad day — our little reminders for parents are made for exactly those days. If English is not the language you think in, five programs (talking, speech sounds, behaviour, big feelings and gross motor) carry an Urdu quick-start box — گھر پر آج یہ کریں — with the same steps in Urdu.
What does five minutes of practice actually look like?
It looks like a short four-step loop. You get face to face, show your child what you want instead of testing them, wait five silent seconds, then answer whatever your child gives you and add one word to it. Repeat that three or four times, and stop while your child is still enjoying it.
The wait is the step almost every parent skips. Five seconds of silence feels far longer than it is, and it is usually the moment your child would have tried — if the room had stayed quiet. The same loop works whether you are building words, calm hands or a pencil grip, and it fits inside the moments that already go wrong: everyday situations like mealtimes, shopping trips and bedtime.
Which program should I start with?
Start from the sentence you would say to a friend, not from a diagnosis. Here is how the words parents use most often map onto the programs below.
- “Mera bacha bolta nahi” — my child is not talking yet. Start with Help Your Child Talk, under Speech & Language.
- “Bacha saaf nahi bolta” — my child talks, but people outside the family cannot understand. Start with Clearer Speech at Home.
- “Bacha aik jagah nahi baithta” — my child cannot sit still or finish anything. Start with Build Attention & Focus.
- “Baat nahi manta” — every request turns into a fight. Start with Calmer Behaviour, then Managing Big Feelings.
- “Doosron ke saath nahi khelta” — my child plays alone. Start with Connection & Communication or Making Friends.
Choose one and give it four to six weeks before you add another. If your child has recently been given a diagnosis and you are not sure what any of it means yet, read what to do in the first weeks after a diagnosis first — the programs will still be here. And if brothers and sisters are feeling squeezed out by all of this, supporting the siblings matters as much as the practice.
Do you have programs for older children and teens?
Yes — most of our programs are aimed at little ones, but these four are written for school-age children and teenagers (roughly 7–16) instead: school, friendships, feelings and focus, not toddler stuff.
Browse all 23 home programs by area
Each card tells you the age range it is written for and what the program is trying to build. Open one to see its weekly roadmap, its red flags and its PDF.
Speech & Language
Help Your Child Talk
Help your child understand more, say more words, and enjoy communicating.
Open programClearer Speech at Home
Help your child say sounds more clearly and be understood by family, teachers and friends.
Open programStammering at Home
Take the pressure off talking, so a child who stammers keeps talking freely and stays confident while their speech settles.
Open programBehaviour & Focus
Build Attention & Focus
Help your child stay with an activity a little longer, listen first time more often, and finish simple tasks with less frustration.
Open programCalmer Behaviour
Help your child have fewer meltdowns, understand what is expected of them, and settle more quickly — with less shouting from anyone.
Open programManaging Big Feelings
Help your child recognise their feelings, calm down more easily, and feel understood when emotions run high.
Open programSocial Communication
Making Friends
Help your child take turns, share, join in play and build warm connections with other children.
Open programOlder Kids: Making Friends
Help your older child or teen make friends they actually keep — starting a conversation, joining a group, and feeling confident being themselves around other people.
Open programMotor & Coordination
Hands & Handwriting
Build the hand strength, control and pre-writing skills your child needs before neat handwriting can come.
Open programMovement & Coordination
Build your child’s balance, strength and coordination through everyday active play, so that running, jumping, climbing and catching start to feel easy instead of effortful.
Open programDaily Living
Gentle Toilet Training
Toilet training goes best when it is calm, unhurried and led by your child’s readiness rather than their age — and this program shows you exactly how to do that at home.
Open programBetter Sleep
Help your child settle at bedtime, fall asleep more easily and stay asleep for longer — and give the whole family calmer nights.
Open programLearning & School
Ready to Read
Build the rhyme, letter sounds and blending skills that let a child of 2 to 6 start reading — at home, in a few happy minutes a day.
Open programEveryday Maths
Build your child’s number sense — counting, knowing “how many”, comparing amounts and spotting patterns — through play and ordinary daily moments.
Open programDevelopmental Support
Down Syndrome at Home
Help your child learn, communicate and take part in family life — celebrating every step at their own pace.
Open programDevelopmental Delay at Home
Help your child take the next small step in every area — talking, moving, playing, thinking and self-help — starting from where they are today, not from where their age says they should be.
Open programLearning & Life Skills
Help your child learn the real-life skills that build independence, safety and dignity — at home, at school and out in the world.
Open programWhen is a home program not enough?
A home program is a good place to start, and a poor place to stay if something is not adding up. Health services such as the NHS and the CDC list signs like these as reasons to have a child checked rather than to keep waiting:
- No babbling by around 12 months, and no single words by around 18 months.
- Skills your child once had — words, waving, eye contact — that have faded or stopped.
- Your child does not turn when you call the name, in a quiet room, more than once.
- Coughing, choking, gagging or real distress with food and drink.
- You have a worry about your child’s hearing, or there have been repeated ear infections.
- Steady practice for a couple of months has changed nothing at all.
None of that means something is wrong. It means the next step is a person, not a page — a doctor, a paediatrician, a speech and language therapist or a developmental assessment, whichever is nearest to you. If you would like us to look at it, tell us what you are seeing and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right people, or point you to someone who is.
Follow the Home Development Curriculum
A professional, stage-by-stage plan that lines these programs up by your child’s developmental level, so the right next step is always in front of you.
Questions parents ask about home programs
Honest answers about time, language, cost and what a home program can and cannot do.
Can I do speech therapy at home myself?
You can do a great deal at home, and parent-led practice is a normal part of speech and language therapy — but it is not the same as therapy. A parent can model words, wait, and give a child hundreds of small chances to communicate every day. What a parent cannot do is work out why the difficulty is there. Use a home program for the practice, and a therapist for the assessment.
How much time should we spend on it each day?
Five to ten minutes on most days works better than one long session at the weekend. Children learn skills inside the routines they already live in, so the best practice happens at mealtimes, bath time, while dressing, and on the walk to school. If it stops being fun, stop early — a short happy session teaches more than a long unhappy one.
How soon will I see a change?
It depends on your child, the skill and how often you practise, so nobody can honestly promise a timeline. What usually shifts first is not the skill itself but your child’s willingness to try: more looking at you, more attempts, quicker responses. Write those small signs down. If nothing has moved at all after a couple of months of steady practice, that is a reason to ask for an assessment rather than to try harder.
Are the programs really free?
Yes. Every program on this page is free to read and free to download as a printable PDF. There is no sign-up, no account and no email needed. You are welcome to print one, hand it to a grandparent, a relative or a class teacher, or take it with you to another professional — it is written in plain language for families, not for clinics.
We speak Urdu and English at home — which language should I use?
Use the language you are most natural and most relaxed in, because your child learns from rich, easy talk rather than from the “right” language. Mixing Urdu, English, Saraiki or Punjabi does not cause a delay. When you count your child’s words, count them across all the languages together — that combined total is your child’s real vocabulary.
My child has more than one difficulty. Which program comes first?
Choose one. Running four programs at once usually means none of them actually happens. Many families find communication is the sensible place to start, because a child who can tell you what they want has fewer reasons to melt down and can join in with more of the day. Give it four to six weeks, then add a second program once the first is running by itself.
Do I need a diagnosis before starting a home program?
No. The programs are grouped by what you are noticing at home — not talking, hard to understand, cannot sit still, will not eat — rather than by a label, so you can start today. A diagnosis changes who supports your child and what school can offer; it does not change whether daily practice at home is worth doing. If your child already has one, the matching program runs alongside professional therapy rather than instead of it.
Still wondering about something? Our full FAQ for parents covers assessments, session length, school reports and what happens after a diagnosis.
Want a program tailored to your child?
A short, friendly conversation is the best first step. Call, text or WhatsApp us — we’ll listen and guide you, with no pressure.
MPS Road, Block A Model Town, Multan (near Bloomfield Hall School, Street No. 2) · Mon–Sat, 10 AM – 7 PM