Birth to 3 years old

Can Childhood Ear Infections Impact Speech & Language?
When a child has a middle-ear infection, fluid accumulates in the middle ear. The middle ear space behind the eardrum is typically filled with air - not fluid. This fluid can actually remain even after the infection has cleared. The presence of this fluid can cause a temporary hearing loss or reduction in hearing. And of course children with repeated infections or fluid build up have a higher likelihood of speech and language delays.

Using Everyday Activities To Enhance Language Development
What is important to understand is that even if you have a toddler with a language delay, you don't have to make extra time throughout your day to enhance and work on language development and language learning. This should be incorporated into everyday activities such as meal time, bath time, getting dressed and even play time.

Learning Language Through Play
Language learning is an ongoing process that occurs all day long during everyday activities and especially during play. (…)

Amazing Story of Baby Learning to Read With Signing Time!
This is an incredible story of a 17 month old that can read! This story first aired on March 10th on the Today Show. Signing Time family Katy & Michael Barrett shared their experience with their daughter, Elizabeth, learning to read when she was just 13-months old. They contribute a large part of this to introducing her at a very young age to Signing Time. Both parents are speech/language pathologists

Tips To Help Your Child Learn New Words
Many of these tips to encourage language development and help your child learn new words are are things that we all do everyday without really thinking about it. So use this list to re-assure yourself that you are stimulating your child's language development already and perhaps you will find some tips on this list that you are not doing but that you can incorporate in your daily routine with your child.

Does Your Child Have Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)?
Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), is synonymous with developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) and dyspraxia. This is a motor speech disorder. Children with developmental apraxia have difficulty coordinating and sequencing their articulators (mouth, lips, jaw, tongue) to produce sounds, syllables and words. This is not at all due to muscle weakness, but rather it is due to poor communication between the brain and the muscles that are needed for speech. In other words, the area of the brain that is responsible for telling the muscles what to do and how to move to make partiuclar sounds is not fully developed or possibly damaged. In adults, apraxia of speech is caused by a stroke or other brain damage. In children the cause is not so clear. Speech apraxia is only related to speech activities and so non-speech activities that use the same muscles such as coughing, chewing and swallowing are performed just fine

Give Your Child Motivation to Communicate
If you have a 2 or 3 year old that is barely saying any words, it's time to think about increasing his or her need to communicate. There are many ways to do this, but first and foremost, as a parent you need to try real hard not to anticipate your child's needs. You need to think of ways to create opportunities for your child to absolutely need to communicate. If your child's wants and needs are always anticipated by you or if your child as an older sibling that talks for him, then he won't ever have the need to communicate for himself.

Imitation Is Vital For Speech and Language Development

Imitation begins early in infancy and continues throughout childhood. (…)

Speech Language Evaluation Process
The evaluation process is different depending on the age of your child and I will divide this post into three sections: speech/language evaluations from birth to 3 (early intervention), speech/language evaluations for preschoolers (3-5) and the school age child.

Birth to 3 years:
If you suspect that your baby or toddler has a delay in the area of speech and or language development, please look into having him evaluated as soon as possible. Early intervention is so important and will often drastically reduce or eliminate the need for therapy as the child becomes school age. If you are unsure, perhaps an earlier post on language developmet guidelines and/or speech development guidelines will help you with that decision. Local early intervention programs serve children birth to three years old and are state funded. Click on this link to learn more about early intervention and find a program near you

The Autistic Child's Need to Communicate
I was recently asked a question about a specific autistic child and speech therapy and I'm posting it here because I thought the answer might be helpful to others.

The person who asked me this question was not a speech therapist, but someone who was/is working with this family and their autistic 2 1/2 year old son

Sign Language & Speech Therapy
Help Your Child Communicate by Teaching Him Simple Signs at an Early Age

To provide a program of total communication for young children, sign language is often used in conjunction with traditional speech therapy. (…)

Speech Development: Typical Guidelines
Speech development is a very gradual process that begins in infancy and sometimes continues until the age of 7 or 8. (…)

Language Development: Typical Guidelines
Through my years as a speech/language pathologist and mom, I've been asked the same question many times: "Is my child's language development on track for his age?" Needleless to say, there is a wide range of "normal" in any area of development - even, and maybe especially in language development. That is why in this post I'm going to just highlight some typical guidelines for you. (…)