Speech Mommie

The Whistle on the Train By Margaret McNamara and Richard Egielski

2010-04-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

Kayden just got this book from his grandma and loves it. We have read it over and over and now he "reads it to me". It's to the tune of "The wheels on the bus" and has different train lingo. Finding books/songs that are to familiar tunes can help less verbal children speak more and expand their vocabulary, it's a fun way to increase language production and studies have shown it works well!
The pop out pictures in this book are also full of details that can give parents a huge source of narrative prompts to ask alot of questions and bridge their children to use alot of new vocabulary words and describing words!

Sorry!

2010-03-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts! We are in the middle of a big move and busy finding a new house, working with movers and all that other fun stuff that goes with moving. I promise to try and update as soon as I have a second to breathe! Just wanted to let you all know I'm still here and still will be blogging!

Buster by Denise Fleming

2010-03-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

Buster by Denise Fleming is a book about a dog that is spoiled and loved by his family. Then they bring home the unthinkable-a cat! Buster decides to ignore Betty and Betty in turn decides to do everything she can to get Buster's attention. Once Buster reaches his breaking point he runs away to a park and enjoys all his favorite things without Betty there to bug him. But when he wants to go home he can't find the way and he decides he is lonely and lost. Luckily Betty is high up in a tree and he uses her as his landmark to get back home. The story ends with Buster and Betty being friends and Buster realizing he is happy to have Betty at home with him.

I used this book to talk about how Buster wasn't very happy that Betty came home, kind of like how Kayden wasn't/isn't very happy sometimes that he has his brother at home. And then reinforced how happy Buster realized he was to always have a friend at home with him. Seemed to click a little with my little guy, we'll see how long it carries over with his relationship with baby brother:).

Vocabulary words to work on: IGNORE, ATTENTION, CURVY, LONELY, and FAMILIAR.

Digby Takes Charge by Caroline Church

2010-03-07T11:07:00.000-08:00

This week our theme with Kayden's library books was dogs. He loves dogs so he was very excited about all of the books we picked out. My favorite of the 4 was Digby Takes Charge by Caroline Church.

Digby is a sheepdog and he has difficulty taking charge on the farm. He tries all different methods to make the sheep on the farm listen to him. He tries using a bulldozer, a tank, and even a helicopter to get the sheep to herd into their pen. But the 6 silly sheep still won't listen to him. The cows and pigs come to his rescue and tell him their secret for getting what they want, using the word PLEASE. As soon as he uses please the sheep happily listen to him. I loved the message this book gave to Kayden, that people will listen to you if you ask kindly. Since we started reading this book I've noticed a BIG increase in his please and thank you use. I always try and make a point of telling him how much I like it when he uses those nice words and it seems to really be making an impact on him! I think this is a book I'm going to have to buy for our own home library to keep Please and Thank you usage up in our house as a little reminder for him.

Along with the "nice words" we also talked about the following vocabulary words in this story- what it means to HERD and PEN sheep and what MISERY, FURIOUS, CONFUSED, IGNORED, and FEROCIOUS mean.

I would definetly recommend this book to others to read with their little one, it kept Kayden's interest and taught him a lesson, it also had cute pictures he enjoyed looking at and describing. For us it was a 5 out of 5 star book!

Petco

2010-03-03T21:07:00.000-08:00

Go to Petco! You can talk about the gerbils, mice, ferrets, rats, fish, crabs, spiders and birds. Compare and contrast the animals, which ones are big, small, spotted, stripped, live in water, on land, fly, swim. It's a free, fun place to go and reinforce language for your little ones!

Word of the day

2010-03-01T13:18:00.001-08:00

One way to work on vocabulary is to pick a word of the day and use that word alot. Yesterday our word was Vegetation. On our walk we talked about how the bushes, grass, flowers, trees, etc were all vegetation. Then Kayden would point to stuff and ask if it was vegetation, at first he pointed to things that weren't-like the sky and a light pole but by the end of the walk all he was pointing to was actual vegetation.
I usually pick our word of the day from something he asks about or something new we see and then I try to keep using that word frequently in our talks during the following weeks and months.

Lakeshore Learning Fishing Game

2010-02-27T15:32:00.000-08:00

This game is from Lakeshore learning and is a huge hit in our house! Click on the title and it will take you to the item at Lakeshore's website.

There are alot of fishing games out there that kids love and you can use them as a tool to encourage language. When we play fishing in the bath I have Kayden talk about what color of fish he caught "I caught a yellow fish", what kind of fish he caught "This is a stingray". You can also use it to create categories by categorizing all the fish according to type and then color.

Storytime

2010-02-27T12:30:00.000-08:00

Storytime is a fun weekly event that you can do with your little ones that is free! It's great to expose them to an environment where they have to follow simple directions, rules and listen to someone else other than you. Storytime also exposes them to new language, vocabulary and books. They usually have an expected sequence of events which helps your child work on predicting what will come next. Kayden has been going to storytime since he was about 3 months old. We started at the library storytime called Lapsit and now we do a storytime through the city of chandler events program. He loves going to storytime and gets very excited when I tell him that the next day we are going and I love taking him and exposing him to this fun learning environment.

The Police Cloud by Christoph Neimann

2010-02-25T08:42:00.000-08:00

The Police Cloud by Christoph Neimann is a super cute book about a cloud that wants to be a "police cloud". The fact that he is a cloud makes it hard for him to stop criminals, this makes the cloud sad so he starts to cry. His tears put a fire out on a building that is on fire so the firechief wants him to be apart of the fire department. I love that it has such a sweet ending and that the little cloud ends up happy with a big fireman hat on.
Kayden really liked this book and asked to read it every night that we had it from the library. We were able to talk about some new vocabulary words like; criminal, robber, and sunbathing. He loves any book that has to do with firemen or policemen because to him they are heros so a book that has both in it is a sure winner in our house!

Burger Boy by Alan Durant

2010-02-25T08:24:00.000-08:00

Last week at the library one of the books Kayden picked was Burger Boy by Alan Durant. This book made my little man laugh and laugh. It's probably best for kiddos 2 and 1/2 and up, the littler ones wouldn't understand it and parts of it will still be confusing to a 2 and 1/2 year old.

The story is a little boy that will only eat Burgers and his mom warns him that one day he could turn into a burger. He does and has to escape some different situations along his road to becoming a boy again.

The lesson is that you need to eat a variety of foods because all of one thing isn't enough for little kids. So this book could be good for picky eaters or little ones who are stuck on certain foods, it could help you bridge a conversation on why they need to eat a variety of foods.

It's also good for talking about food groups and different food categories. We used it to talk about fruits and veggies and which ones we like and some that he hasn't tried, etc.

Overall it's a fun book and got my little guys stamp of approval because everytime we read it during the last week he would laugh out loud, so to me that is a good book!

Play "I Spy"

2010-02-23T13:28:00.001-08:00

I spy is a fun way to work on describing things without your child even realizing they are working on language at all. Take turns describing things you spy and then guessing, this incorporates both receptive (what they understand) and expressive (what they can say) language.
Fun times to play I spy are on a walk and driving in the car or just sitting in your living room!

Make a craft

2010-02-21T12:21:00.000-08:00

Here are some recent crafts we have done together. He LOVES craft projects and gets very excited when we start them! And he loves showing them off to daddy, which results in another moment when he gets to use his language skills!

Making crafts works on following directions, sequencing steps and vocabulary. All things important for language development. And the best part, they just think it's fun, they don't realize you are working on their language development at all. Talk through the craft alot. Talk about what you have to do first, second, third and last. Talk about the supplies you need, label them to give them the words to request for them. Give them directions to follow, simple for younger kiddos and more difficult/multi-step for older kiddos. 1 step directions are good for 1-3 year olds, 3-5 year olds can usually do 2-3 step directions.

Keep it in the middle

2010-02-17T18:26:00.000-08:00

If your little one isn't talking much or at all, or if you just want to increase their phrase length you can use this method to encourage language expansion/use/growth. When your eating a meal put everything in the middle of the table. The utensils, plates/bowls, drinks/cups, and all the food. Then everyone has to request what they need. This allows the adults to model the good language use and the little ones can do what they can to request. So if your little one isn't talking at all you can just require them to use a sign or a gesture or some form of communication and then reward them with their desired item. As they get better with what your requiring them to use you can increase your demands on them. Begin with close approximations such as for cup if they say "cu" then reward them with the cup. Slowly require more from them, "cup please", then "Want cup please", then "I want a cup please" and so on. Always reinforce their request with what they said but one step higher. So if they say "cup" you would say "oh you want a cup please" or "you said, cup please" that way they are always hearing the correct word and you are scaffolding them to go one step further than they are currently able to.

Offer Choices!

2010-02-16T21:45:00.000-08:00

To get your little one to talk. Offer choices! Don't make all the decisions for them, give them some power! Showing them that communicating gives them power is one of the best motivators for them to TALK! When giving them their food, ask if they want the yellow or blue bowl, the sippy or big boy cup, the strawberries or grapes. Giving them 2 choices and having them verbally request one is a great way to give them "power" without you loosing power, your still choosing their 2 options. And the choice won't take forever:) If you give a 2 or 3 year old 5 choices it's too overwhelming and you'll be waiting a really long time for that answer. So offer 2 choices several times a day. Another positive of giving them choices, they will feel like "winners" during the day so they will be more likely to let you win some battles too, like taking a bath when you need them too, etc.
As their communication skills grow, increase the demands of the choice they make. Now they can't just say "yellow" for the yellow bowl, they have to say "yellow bowl". Once they are good with the 2 word requests, extend it more, "yellow bowl please", then "I want the yellow bowl, please" and so on.

Oral Motor Exercises

2010-02-06T12:49:00.000-08:00

Playing with bubbles

Some mommies have emailed me asking for ideas to work on oral motor control and strength for their children with decreased tongue, lip, cheek strength and tone and/or coordination.
Some fun ways to work on this with little kiddos are:
-Blow Bubbles!-kiddos love it and it helps them make the "ewww" sound
-Use a straw
-Play with a harmonica
-Blow a kazoo
-lick ice cream cones-works on tongue movement
-put sticky peanut butter (of course if kiddo isn't allergic) on their lips and they have to lick it all off with their tongue
-blow a whistle

Have fun!

Mommies-Comment

2010-02-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

Mommies put in the comment section what your child is working on, what their diagnosis is and what you'd like more info on or ways to work on skills! Or let me know if you have a typically developing child and just like to encourage language growth! I've had alot of readers send me emails and such but I'd love for you to start using the comment section!

Adjectives

2010-02-04T21:42:00.000-08:00

Adjectives are something that is often missing from a child's speech or something that a child has trouble understanding how to use. So model adjectives now, when your talking about something use those fun words that make what your saying more interesting!
One way we talk about adjectives is through puzzles, we have one that he has to match the adjective to the noun "shiny fish", "red strawberry". It's by "Infantino" and is called "Matching colors and textures".

On a walk...

2010-02-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

I'll never forget about a conversation I had with a dear friend of mine. Her daugther was struggling with language development and she asked me for some tips before she took it to the next level. I asked her if she talks alot to her child. She said, no. She just lets her be. She thought that was what was best for her, to develop her own way. I have to say I was shocked. I went on to probe, "for example, when your on a walk do you tell her what you see?", she replied with, "no I just let her look around and see what is outside, I thought that is what I should do?" When I told her without her telling her daughter what she was seeing she'd have no idea what it was she seemed surprised and excited that she could make a little change and probably get a big gain. Now her little girl is 2 and 1/2 and talking just fine, didn't need speech therapy afterall.

Not sure if it's that I had "talking" drilled into me for 6 straight years while I was in college or if it just comes natural to some people and not to others to know that you have to talk to your baby/toddler. You are their model. Without hearing you talk, they have no model of what they should be saying.

So mommies, the most important thing you can do is TALK! Talk all the time. You need to make an effort to talk as much as possible. Talk about what you are doing all day long.

One of my most talkative times with Mr. Kayden is on our daily walks. It always has been. I talk to him the entire walk, when he was tiny I would describe what I saw "I see a green tree with brown bark. Ohh, a pretty, blue bird just flew by." I would tell him what I was seeing as I saw it. And as soon as he could talk he started adding to the narration and talks our entire walk with me. I remember one day a man was a few feet in front of us on our walk and Kayden was about 15 months old and after walking in front of us for about 15 minutes he turned around and said "wow, he talks your ear off doesn't he!" at that point I knew what I was doing was making a difference. For a 15 month old to be told they are talking someone's ear off is success to me:) Alot of 15 month olds have very few words and my little man had so many he could fill up an entire hour long walk with talking!

So mommies, take those moments to talk. Teach your baby about the world, without you telling them that tall thing with green on it is a tree they will have no idea what to call it. And they need to hear it over and over before it becomes apart of their vocabulary. So when your on a walk, talk.

"That's Not My Monster"

2010-01-30T14:09:00.000-08:00

I love Usborne books for language growth and treatment. That's Not my monster...is great for my 3 month old because it has simple pictures on each page to look at and a texture to feel. And it's great for my 2 year old because we can talk about Negation and what things he is "not". I'll ask him if he is old and he'll say, "no I'm not mommy", or if he is a girl and he'll say "no I'm not mommy". So he learns how to use NOT in sentences and that it means something that isn't which can be a hard concept for kiddos to grasp and is something I've worked with many clients on. The crazy monsters are also good because I have him describe them and this develops his adjective knowledge and increases his sentence length.

Therapy Everyday?

2010-01-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

One of my parents said to me "my daughter's friend gets therapy everyday". She was referring to actual therapies-speech, OT, PT, Music, Developmental, etc. But before she expanded I thought she meant that the parent focused on providing a language rich environment everyday. As a parent you are the best teacher of your child. YOU are with them everyday for more hours than anyone else. Speech therapy and other therapies are great. But unless YOU are working with them daily, hourly and by the minute you aren't going to see significant changes nearly as fast as you would like. Making your moments with your child purposeful can create the most amount of change possible. I'm not saying you need to be doing worksheets all day or drilling speech sounds. I just mean that it's good to make ordinary moments, teaching moments.

For example:

If your making lunch, talk about what your doing, sequence the steps out loud, have your child help to the best of their ability.

If your doing laundry, talk about the laundry detergent, tell them it's the soap that washes the clothes and makes them clean, like you wash them with soap in the bath tub. Have them help seperate the clothes, lights and darks. Talk about how the washer makes them wet and the dryer dries them.

And as we all know, if your the passenger in the car you don't really remember how to get there! So make your child the driver during these situations once they have some understanding of what your doing. Have them spread the butter, have them seperate the clothes. Just watching you isn't going to create the same knowledge base that DOING will!

These things might seem so simple or silly or things everyone knows. But you wouldn't believe how many students I worked with in the schools that had no idea what laundry detergent was. Could not tell me the steps to making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

By 3 years....

2010-01-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

These are the milestones I'm currently looking for in my 2 and 1/2 year old, by 3 years most children will:
-ask alot of questions (you will know when a child has reached this milestone, they ask questions all day long about everything! Kayden got here a few months ago and he asks questions from the moment he wakes up until he goes to bed. My mouth is sometimes ready for a nap by 8am because I'm constantly responding to him!)
-match primary colors and might name a few (Kayden has known his colors for awhile now. But many of my preschoolers I work with do not. It isn't a big deal but something to work on and watch for)
-understand some time concepts (for example "tomorrow we are going to the park" and they understand when that is, etc. some other early time concepts are yesterday, after, before, next week)
-usually have a vocabulary of 800-1000 words
-know their full name, sex, and part of their address
-know the difference between boys and girls
-frequently talks to themself
-can tell a story
-uses at least 3-4 word sentences
-can sing songs and recite some nursery rhymes. (nursery rhymes are important to teach, they have rhymes in them which is great for emergent literacy and they teach the flow of language in a fun way)
-can use all the different sentence types (statements, questions and commands)
-repeat sounds, words and phrases
-tell you when they need to go to the restroom
-like to whisper
-can deliver a simple message (for example you tell them- "tell daddy you are going to the park" and they go and tell daddy the message)
-are about 80% intelligible to a stranger
-can pay attention to an activity or book for about 20 minutes

milestones taken from Speech Language Hearing, Development in Preschoolers

Real Pictures

2010-01-23T12:03:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple pictures I took to use for a client that only had about 5 words in their vocabulary and wasn't picking sign up very well. The client and her parents were getting very frustrated. The real pictures worked well and decreased tantrums and acting out alot!

Sometimes with clients that aren't talking and it's causing alot of frustrations for the child and parents I will take pictures of things/items/food they frequently request at home. They then use these pictures of "real items" to request their desired treat, toy, etc. I always have the parents model the word when the child uses the picture as communication. But this is the easiest form of communicating for a young, nonverbal child. This allows them to learn that communication=power! If they communicate their wants and needs they will get what they want/need. This can be a great bridge for non-speaking children while they are learning to speak. It's also very useful for children with Autism because they are usually very visual.

You can shrink the pictures down and laminate to make them easier to use for long term use. If it's just a "bridge" for a pretty little one that hasn't started speaking yet you might just want to save yourself the time and just use the actual picture or laminate the picture at regular size.

Misarticulating /k/ and /g/

2010-01-22T14:54:00.000-08:00

Many kiddos go through a stage when they use /t/ for /k/ and /d/ for /g/. Most sources say that this is a normal transition time from 18-29 months. My little guy is still doing it and he is 30 months old. I'm not worried about it now. He Does say both the /k/ and /g/ sounds but not all the time. So that tells me he is slowly learning them and he will just slowly start using them more and more in the correct placements. If he didn't have /k/ or /g/ in his sound bank then I would worry more.

Ways I encourage correct pronunciation are- over emphasizing /k/ and /g/ when he uses the /t/ or /d/ sound. For example if he would say "mommy look at the tat", I'd respond with "Oh yes, I see that black Cat" and make the /k/ very obvious so that he is hearing the correct sound.

I will also say words that start with /t/ sounds and others that start with /k/ sounds and ask him to tell me which ones are /t/ sounds and which ones are /k/ sounds. This is teaching him to hear the difference and hopefully help him to realize that when he says "tat" he isn't saying it in a way that people can understand him very well.

Another one that works pretty well with him is acting confused. If he says "look at the tar mommy", I will respond with "what you see black tar on the sidewalk?" to show him that he is saying something that means something else when he substitutes the wrong sound.

Like I said, if your little one is still pretty close to 2 and a half I wouldn't worry about it too much if they aren't always using /k/ and /g/ all the time. I would check and make sure they have that sound in their sound repitoure and if they do I would just take opportunities to reinforce using them correctly. This is a NORMAL sound substition though for a child under 3.

The Post Office

2010-01-21T11:41:00.000-08:00

Writing letters and making cards for family members is a fun way to work on written language with your kiddo. And as a reward, whoever they write letters or draw pictures for will usually write them back:)

Kayden loves making pictures for our family that isn't close. We also usually write them a letter, he tells me what he wants to say and I transcribe it for him. We talk about how letters start with - Dear XX, and how they end w/ - Love, Kayden (or whatever other closing you choose). After his hard work on his artwork or letter we work together to write the address on the envelope and his return address on the top and talk about where each belongs and that you have to have the address it goes to on the envelope so that the postman knows where you want it to go. You can adjust this activity for different ages and ability levels by having them do more or less of the activity by themselves.

After we are finished we go to the post office and he puts the stamp in the upper right hand corner and drops it off in the slot. While we are there we talk about alot of the post office vocabulary and he asks me questions about "how do they know where to take it, why do we drop it in that slot?", etc. It's a great learning opportunity and language developer!

And then he patiently awaits a return letter or package from the receiver of his special artwork, card, or letter.