If your child needs to see a speech therapist, there are a ton of great resources to help you through the process. Teachers, pediatricians, ASHA, and the all-knowing Google can guide you through the basics: from what’s an SLP to how to do I understand my IEP? But, there are times when you just want to hear about the experience from another parent. How did they react to the idea of speech therapy? How do they find the time for it? What is Speech Therapy like? What did their other kids think about their big brother having special appointments? Did they ever get a hang of all the acronyms? How do other families go from “I think we need to see someone” to “Speech therapy, yup, that’s a regular part of our family life.”
Animal-Assisted Speech Therapy
Parents' Corner Speech Therapist Speech Therapy TechniquesShark Week is here! Shark Week is here!! Sure, it’s fun to watch on TV, but what does it have to do with speech and language therapy? Actually, quite a bit. Sure, there is our good friend the Shark Buddy, but what about swimming with dolphins, riding horses or even petting a dog? Animal-assisted therapy has been gaining strength in popularity and recognition as an effective part of a therapy regime for children who have a wide range of social, language and communication disorders.
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The Most Important Supply: Back to School Speech Therapy
News Parents' Corner Speech Therapy TechniquesIt’s time to start thinking Back to School! As parents and teachers, we want to give our kids everything they need to succeed, and at this time of year it seems easy: pencils, paper, notebooks, a backpack, maybe a lunchbox — all the tools of their trade. But it’s easy to overlook the most important things: excitement, self-esteem, self-confidence. Are there tools for that? Just like the physical tools our kids use to start their new year, emotional needs should be a priority; we want our children to step through the classroom doors with ease. Speech Buddies has been busy building an easy way to make back to school speech therapy, or anytime speech therapy, as accessible as possible…
Teenager Technology Overload – How Much is Too Much?
Parents' CornerYour teen seemingly goes from his laptop, to his tablet, to his smart phone as if it’s a full time job. Sound familiar? Sure, technology today is “essential,” but honestly, at times it seems like teenager technology overload. In this age where our children don’t know a world without technology, families with teenagers are struggling to find out the appropriate balance. Technology is an excellent resource, especially for use in a speech therapy setting, as long as the appropriate rules and limits are followed. As our teenagers have access to more information than ever before, it’s important to realize that their brains may not be able to process it as easily. A study from Loren Frank of the University of California suggested,
Downtime lets the brain go over experiences it’s had, solidify them and turn them into permanent long-term memories.
However when our brains are constantly stimulated, “you prevent this learning process.”
5 Fast Fixes for “F” Sound Practice
At Home Ideas Language Development Parents' Corner Pronunciation & Lisps Speech Therapy TechniquesA few weeks ago, we covered methods to help your child correctly pronounce the sound of “TH”. While the most commonly mispronounced sounds are r, l, s, ch, and sh, the sound of “F” as in “Fish” is particularly difficult for a number of people, especially young children. Are you hearing a “p” instead of an “f”? Do your fish live in a “pishbowl” instead of a “fishbowl”? While we don’t have a Speech Buddy Tool designed to treat the mispronunciation of “f,” we do have suggestions to help your child with “f” sound practice. Here are five fabulous facts and features to fix the sound of “f”.
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5 Ideas to Help Kids Learning to Follow Directions
At Home Ideas Parents' CornerPlease put your toys away. Please put your toys away. Please put your toys away now! Sound like a broken record? Sometimes it does around my house. It can be very frustrating and hard to keep calm when your child does not follow instructions or completely ignores your requests. Often kids view these instructions as commands or even punishments, when they are simply ways to make their lives (and ours) easier. Following directions is a crucial life skill, and if it’s not cultivated properly at home can be a problem once school arrives. What are some ways you can help your child follow your directions? We’ve got a few ideas.
Free Summer Speech Therapy Activity Calendar!
At Home Ideas Parents' Corner Speech Therapy TechniquesActivity Calendars! We’ve all heard of them! Perhaps your kids even came home with some in their backpacks on the last day of school. Have you checked out our Summer Fun Speech Therapy Activity Calendar? Our team of Speech Buddies SLPs, artists, and creative writers put their heads together to develop an excellent and creative way to practice speech therapy at home during the summer and avoid that “summer slip!”
Protect Your Hearing on the Fourth!
At Home Ideas Parents' CornerBOOM, POP, SIZZLE! The sounds of July! Even before the celebration on the Fourth, popping firework sounds are up and down the street. And, we all love a great fireworks show on the Fourth of July! Did you know that fireworks and other loud noises can cause permanent hearing damage? According to the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders,
approximately 26 million Americans between the ages of 20 and 69 have high frequency hearing loss from overexposure to loud noises at work or during leisure activities. Children may be particularly vulnerable to this risk.
Of course you want to watch the fireworks and enjoy the day, but here are a few precautions you can take to make sure you protect your hearing or your child’s hearing.
4 Easy Articulation Activities at Home
At Home Ideas Parents' Corner Pronunciation & Lisps Speech Therapy TechniquesArticulation. What exactly does that mean? Articulation is the movement of the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs (the articulators) in order to make speech sounds. It is considered an articulation disorder when there are problems making the sounds. Sounds can be substituted, left off, added, or even changed. Often, it is young children who make speech sound errors. They may say “wabbit” instead of “rabbit”, or leave out certain parts of a word such as “nana” for banana. If these errors continue past a certain age without improvement, your child may have an articulation disorder. Are articulation disorders treatable? Absolutely. And you can work on improving articulation skills at home. Here are four easy articulation activities that you can do at home.
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What to Expect: Your Four-Year-Old’s Speech Milestones
Language Development Parents' Corner Pronunciation & Lisps Speech DisordersWhen it comes to speech and language skills, every child develops at a different rate. That being said, there are some generally predictable milestones that each child achieves as they grow and learn. It usually takes about 8 years for a child to master all the speech sounds in the English language.
Although there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, there are 44 distinct sounds!
According to Heidi Hanks, M.S.CCC-SLP, founder of Little Bee Speech, and the terrific website Mommy Speech Therapy, one way to determine if your child’s speech is progressing at a normal rate is using what is called “speech sound norms.” According to Heidi, speech sound norms are tools that speech language pathologists (SLP’s) use to help guide them in determining which errors are developmentally appropriate and which errors are not. There are multiple speech sound norms that are currently being used by SLP’s all around the world.