The people have spoken, and you want to know more about milestones. I wrote a blog post earlier this year about communication milestones and red flags at 24 months, so this week, we’re taking it back to 18 months. Our Facebook page featured some of the milestones on Monday (see below), but what are some...
Tag: child language development
Preventing the summer (speech) slide
Friends, we have made it to the end of the school year School is OUT (or almost out)! Let’s take a moment to celebrate this fact! (Time yourself – one minute, please.) You should certainly celebrate this accomplishment, but for our friends with speech difficulties, the work does not stop here. Have you heard of...
Communication partners, video chats, and children – let’s make it successful
In the last 2 months, I think we’ve all been there – we’re on a video chat with a child and it goes TERRIBLY. There are a lot of blank stares, long moments of silence, and sometimes (read: almost always) the phone shakes as if you’re in a 6.0 magnitude earthquake. Talking with children over...
Sensory skills – an occupational therapist’s perspective
I mentioned briefly on the Facebook page this week that sensory skills are extremely important, especially when it comes to language development. Our occupational therapist friends are the true experts in this area, so for this week’s blog entry, I brought in a PRO! Friends, we’re so lucky to have Brooke Camp, occupational therapist (OT)...
In defense of play therapy for late talkers (and for everyone, really)
When it comes to our younger kiddos (and often older ones, too), sitting at a table and skill-drilling them isn’t perhaps the best or most realistic idea. For our late talkers, speech-language therapy is almost always play-based. From the outside, play-based therapy literally looks like the speech-language pathologist just playing with the child. This often times shocks parents- how can you be making any therapeutic gains with a late talker if you’re not “doing” therapy!?
Rest easy, friends. Play lends itself extremely well to therapy for our littlest clients, and is the much-preferred model of therapy for this age for a number of reasons.
SLP favorite books round-up
There are a lot of things on Earth that make me happy, but books are in the top 10! As a speech-language pathologist, I’m always looking for ways to incorporate books into practice as well as pointing parents to good books that they can read with their kiddos. I have my own personal favorites, but I thought I’d get the opinion of some other speech experts to see what they have to say. So, friends, I present to you our first SLP Favorite Books Round-Up!
The language impairment and emergent literacy connection – Research rumination
We know that language skills are important for kindergarten, but why are these skills so important? Research has long shown a connection between language and literacy, but what specifically do the researchers talk about? In particular, what do they have to say about language and emergent literacy in kindergarten?
Kindergarten readiness – Early warning signs
Do you remember kindergarten? I do! I went for a half of a day. My classroom had a paraprofessional and a teacher. I can vividly remember learning how to make my letters, participating in calendar activities, and playing outside. Milk came in a bag! What a world!
Kindergarten of today is NOT kindergarten of the late 80s and early 90s. Scholastic published this great article describing how kindergarten has evolved since the turn of the century.
Core boards in 6 easy steps
Core boards are the perfect way to model language for students. They help teach pronouns, verbs, adjectives and can help with increasing mean length of utterance (MLU).
Screen time and the bambinos
There is a lot of debate about what is appropriate and what is not when it comes to how much exposure children have to technology. I thought I’d break down the current findings and medical recommendations for you so, when deciding screen time boundaries for your child, you have good information. I’m going to focus primarily on children 2 and under for this post (hence the “bambinos” in the title).