As I explained in my last post, children learn language by hearing it over and over. I explained in that post all about using the strategies of Self Talk, Parallel Talk and Descriptions to help teach your infant, toddler, or young child language. Those strategies can be used with children who have no spoken words […]
Strategies to Help Your Child Talk: Parallel and Self Talk
Children learn language from hearing it, and they start this process basically at birth (although some would argue that they begin even BEFORE birth, since studies have shown that babies can hear their parents voices in the womb sometime around 18-20 weeks gestation and newborns can actually recognize their mothers voices!). Even at birth, their […]
Speech Therapy Data Collection
Oh data collection. It is oh-so-important and yet given all the responsibilities those SLPs working on the schools have, it can be a daunting task. I mean, between all the IEP meetings, IEP paperwork, SST meetings, collaborating with other professionals, consultation, answering emails, planning therapy, implementing therapy, doing assessments, returning phone calls, staff meetings, bus […]
Barrier Games: Great for Language Enrichment
Several years ago I came across a post on a speech message board about barrier games. I remembered learning about them in grad school and the post rekindled my interest in using them as part of my speech and language therapy. Today, I have found Barrier Games to be a very important tool in my […]
Hand-print Spiders for Halloween!
Today we made some hand-print spiders for Halloween! Even in such a SIMPLE craft like this, there are so many opportunities to learn and use language. Here is what you will need Black construction paper White crayon Scissors Hole Punch Glue PomPoms Googly Eyes Yarn Vocabulary you may use/target during the activity Paper Glue […]
Friday Freebie! Cycles Data Sheet
It’s my first official Freebie Friday! As often as I can, I am going to try to provide a new freebie on Fridays. It may be a printable activity for use by parents, SLPs or others that work with children, a list of fun songs or fingerplays, or it could be a speech therapy related […]
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday
One of the best things you can do to promote early learning, exploration, critical thinking skills, and early language development is to expose your children to all kinds of experiences. In October, that means a trip to the pumpkin patch! Happy Wednesday! Have you been to the pumpkin patch this year? What did your children […]
My Tricks to Teaching the /r/ Sound
This is a post written primarily for my fellow SLPs, however many parents may find this post interesting as well 🙂 There are affiliate links to Amazon in this post for your convenience. Oh the dreaded /r/. If you are an SLP reading this, you know what I mean. The /r/ can be SUCH a tricky […]
Some Fun Names for Speech Sounds
Sometimes when working with young children on the production of speech sounds, it is helpful to provide the little one’s with a fun label, or name, for the sound(s) you are teaching. Providing a visual cue to go along with the label is also very helpful, to provide multisensory instruction. Several years ago I asked […]
Hand-Print Pumpkins Craft
I LOVE LOVE LOVE doing arts and crafts projects with my children, as well as in my therapy sessions. There are so many language learning opportunities when doing a craft project with a child or group of children: following directions, basic concepts and vocabulary development, etc. In the theme of fall and Halloween, this week […]