Did you know that books are a great way to work on your child’s critical thinking and problem-solving skills? At The Speech Space we are huge fans of books. The choices for books are endless and these days there are SO MANY great ones! Here is a list of current kid-favorites that are great for working on critical thinking and problem solving skills:
Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers: When a penguin shows up at his door, a boy decides to find out where the penguin came from and get him home. The journey back to the South Pole is difficult and the boy tells the penguin stories to pass the time. When they get to the South Pole, the penguin looks sad and the boy realizes that the penguin wasn’t lost, he was just lonely. This book is great for working on inferences, predictions, sequencing, and emotions.
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson: As a mouse is walking in the forest, he meets a fox, an owl, and then a snake, who all want to eat him for dinner. Instead of being eaten, the smart mouse invents The Gruffalo, who happens to enjoy eating each of these animals for dinner to scare them away. Turns out that The Gruffalo is real! This book is great for ‘wh’ questions (e.g., who, what, where), predictions, inferences, and sequencing.
Gilbert Goldfish Wants a Pet by Kelly DiPucchio: Gilbert is a goldfish who has a pretty awesome life. But, the one thing he wants and the one thing he doesn’t have is a pet. Gilbert goes on a long journey to find a pet, experiencing different situations and emotions. In the end, thank goodness, he gets his wish! This book is great for working on “why” questions, inferences, emotions, and sequencing.
The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear by Don & Audrey Wood: In this story a little mouse finds a delicious, ripe strawberry. As he’s going to get the strawberry he is told about a big, hungry bear that can smell a ripe strawberry miles away! The mouse goes into a panic trying to figure out ways to protect his ripe strawberry (don’t worry, in the end he figures out a way!). This book is great for working on WH- questions (what, where, why, etc), inferencing, predictions, emotions, and sequencing.
Books are not only great for comprehension and vocabulary, but also for critical thinking and problem solving. As you read books to your child, try to use personal connections to help them relate to the story (e.g.,”He wants a pet. What pet do we have?”, “If you could have a pet, what would you chose?”).
If your child is able to answer simple WH questions (e.g., who, what, where, when), work on asking questions that require them to apply the knowledge they have to make inferences (e.g., “Why is the mouse trying to hide the strawberry?”, “How might he feel if the bear got his strawberry? How would you feel?”) and predictions (e.g., “The boy seems to miss the penguin. What might he do?”). After you finish the story see if your child can sequence and retell the story back to you (feel free to flip through the pages together again while they are sequencing and retelling the story).
These are just a few kid-favorite books (and frankly The Speech Space therapists’ favorites too). Check back on the blog for more ideas to help encourage your child’s speech and language development.
If you have questions or concerns about your child’s s development, contact us at The Speech Space. We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
Spring Break is coming up in DC! School breaks can be an amazing opportunity to spend time with your child and make sure they’re getting a language rich experience. Often parents feel overwhelmed with choices or may not have many ideas of what to do. You don’t have to go on a trip to make this break an exciting time, and depending on your family dynamics, you may need to stay close to home. Staycations can be fun and give you the opportunity to connect with your child. We’re here to give you some easy and fun ideas of things you can do during your staycation to have fun and really encourage your child’s language development.
Monday: Library and Books
1. Talk about libraries:
What is inside libraries
Who works there
What kinds of things can you do in a library (e.g., read, listen to stories, check out books.)
What are the appropriate voice levels at the library (inside vs outside voices)
How we check out books
Giving your child a “preview” about what you may see and do will give them a lot of the vocabulary that is used in libraries. Also, when you prepare your child for the experiences they are about to have, they’ll feel more confident talking about what they see.
2. Discuss how you’ll get to the library. Modes of transportation are almost always an interesting topic for children. Although you may live close to a library, perhaps you’re going to a new library that day for a specific story time or group activity. Will you drive? Walk? Bike? If you live in DC, will you metro? Although grown-ups can get tired of the metro system, it’s usually a novel and exciting experience for kids and gives your child a lot to talk about (taking escalators, metro cards, what lines will you take, what stop will you get off, etc).
4. While you travel to the library, talk about what kinds of books your child might like and how you will go about finding them. Maybe you’ll ask the librarian or look it up on a computer in the library. Also, talk about how many books you will check out.
5. Once you’re done and home, talk about all the steps you took to get to the library. Discuss what you saw, what you did, and what you got. Parents often ask their children, “What did you do today?”, when they have been at school, but it’s just as important to ask this same question when you’ve been with your child all day. It makes it easier to help them recall the sequence and details of events and helps get rid of the “I don’t know” answer since you can help them remember!
Tuesday: Indoor Pools or Water Play Day
In DC, there are a few indoor water parks; however, if you live in a warmer climate or if the weather if the weather during Spring Break is nice, you may just want to keep the water fun in your own backyard! Either way, there is so much language associated with water play to bring out language in kids.
1. If you are going to a pool, the first thing to talk about is how we interact with water. It’s always a good idea to review how we play in and around water. See how many rules or ways we play in the water (wearing floaties, making sure parent is around in the water, no running on the pool deck, etc.) your child can name. This is a good way to see how much your child remembers about water rules.
2. Whether you are going to the pool or doing water play at your house, you and your child can work on building their vocabulary and association concepts during your water play day.
Talk about attributes of water (e.g., cold, wet, deep, shallow)
What we wear in water
Different bodies of water (pool vs. ocean vs. lake, etc)
The different things you can see in these bodies of water (e.g.. if heading to a pool, lifeguards)
If you are going to the pool, what do you need to bring with you (towels, bathing suits, any pool toys, etc)
3. Some kids have difficulty understanding and using negatives correctly (e.g., not, no, none). To target negatives, you can play a sorting game with your child. You can pull some items from around your house and decide if they can go in the water or if they cannot go in the water (this may vary depending on if you are going to a pool or doing water play at home). Then your child can pull out items (either the same ones you did or new ones) and decide if the items go in the water or not. Some examples could be: clothing items, stuffed animals, cars, bath toys, food items. You can talk about if they DO or DO NOT go in water.
4. If you are doing water play at home, you can use this opportunity to work on language concepts to help build your child’s vocabulary. Maybe your child wants to pretend they are in the arctic during their water play– what animals would they see, what would the water feel like, you could even add ice cubes to make it cold or use as glaciers! You can do this for other bodies of water too and add items that go with them (e.g., ocean, lake, pond). This activity is great for building your child’s vocabulary skills by giving opportunities for working on category and association concepts, comparing and contrasting, and even attributes (color, shape, size, number).
Wednesday: Parks and Playgrounds
1. Start this activity by talking about which park is your child’s favorite. Every park has so many different features, you can compare/contrast equipment in various parks (e.g.,”They both have slides, but this one has a merry-go-round and that one has swings.”).
2. Once you decide where to go, describe all the parts of the park. Are there sidewalks? What’s on the ground? Think of all the pieces of play equipment. Is it big or small? What colors are there on the play equipment?
3. Discuss how you’ll get there and the steps you take to get to the park. Will you drive or walk or bike or scooter? What do you need for each of these?
.4. Maybe you’ll decide to have a snack or lunch while you are at the park or playground. If so, you can have your child help you prepare and pack your snack or lunch. While doing this you can work on categories (fruits vs. vegetables; drinks vs. foods, etc), comparing/contrasting (e.g., “The fruit snacks are red and the carrots are orange.”) and even sequencing (e.g., while you prepare the sandwich together talk about all the steps you are doing to make the sandwich: first we get out the bread, what do we do next?).
5.. As you’re on the way to the park or playground, describe the things that you see. You can play “I Spy” as you go to draw your child’s attention to what’s in the sky or on the ground or in the street.
Thursday: Cooking
Cooking is a great way to help your child work on sequencing and retelling activities in a hands on way, plus, it can get you to the store to do your grocery shopping!
1. Start by picking one or two (easy) things to make. Fruit salad, cookies, smoothies,or chex mix are some easy and safe things to try out for first time chefs.
2. Make a list of all the ingredients you’ll need for each thing you’ll make. We like to try to draw pictures of the items when we cook, although neither of us are great artists! It will help your child to retell and sequence with pictures, so try it out if you can.
3. Next, go to the store. Give your child 2 items to go find for your recipes (on the aisle you are on). If they find those, see if they can get 3 items. Making this a game will help keep them busy and help them to work on following directions with multiple concepts.
4. When you get home, get the recipe(s) and have your child gather the ingredients as you read them, or vice versa. As you begin ‘cooking,’ try to use sequence words (first, second, third; first, next, last; first, then;before, after, etc) and give 1 or 2 steps at a time (depending on what your child can do). For example: “First wash the strawberries and then cut them.” (for cutting, we like these knives)
5. Having your child tell you what things are used to perform certain tasks is another good language activity (e.g., “What do we use to cut the fruit?”, “What do we use to bake the cookies?”). Or, have them get things in categories (“Get all the fruit.” or “Get all the utensils.”, etc).This will help your child begin to think of objects in different ways, build associations, as well as, their vocabulary.
6. When you’re ready to eat, try to work on describing the foods. You can use categories, color, taste, size, temperature, and/or texture. Then, bon appétit!
Friday: Around the House
There are some common items around your house that kids will love to play with. Feel free to experiment and see what piques your child’s interest and creates the most language-rich experiences.
1. Shaving cream is one of our favorites. Most children really love squishing their hands in shaving cream and there’s a lot to talk about as they do. The color, how it feels, what you could pretend that it is, what you can draw in it…the list could go on and on! We love to put small animal toys and pretend it’s snow, or drive cars through shaving cream and pretend it’s a car wash, or draw in it (a great way to practice making letters or shapes).
2. Water in a tub or bucket is another great idea. Kids love water for some reason (unless they have to take a bath!). Get bowls, measuring cups, lids- anything around the house that could scoop up water. You can also do experiments with various objects (e.g., coins, tissues, pencils, figurines, blocks) to see which items float and which ones do not
3. Tape is surprisingly exciting to use in order to make pictures or just to play with. We like the Washi tape or duct tape with different patterns to make pictures. You can put them on paper or make designs on the sidewalk. Have them tell you about the colors, shapes, or designs they make.
4. If it’s a nice day and you have a good patch of sidewalk or walkway in front of where you live, grab some chalk and go outside! We like to play hop-scotch, which is a fun way to work on counting! You and your child can draw the hop-scotch squares together or you can each have your own hop-scotch squares. You can also take the opportunity to work on things like categories (e.g., “Let’s draw zoo animals” or “Let’s draw some food for our outside pretend snack! Should we draw vegetables or desserts?”,), attributes (i.e., colors, shapes, size, number), prepositions (e.g., “Let’s draw a sun above our flowers.”, “Our house needs a door. Should we put it under the windows or next to the windows?”),
5. Build a marble tower out of recyclable materials around your house! Think of all those paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls, yogurt containers, bubble wrap, boxes and other things you collect over just one week. You and your child can work together to build your very own, homemade marble tower. This activity is really great for problem-solving, team work, making predictions, coming up with solutions and getting creative. You can even YouTube a video before you start building so your child can get excited and inspired about the different possibilities.
We hope you and your family have a great Spring Break! Maybe you have some favorite staycation ideas you and your child do together? Feel free to share your ideas in our comments section.
If you are having concerns about your child’s development reach out to us at The Speech Space. We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
It’s time again for our monthly segment: Favorite Toys Without Batteries! As we talked about here and here, we love toys without batteries. Below is The Speech Space’s April list of great toys that don’t make noise, so that you can get your child talking more while you play!
Magna-Tiles: These are a HUGE hit with kids. We are always surprised at the endurance children have with Magna-Tiles. For younger children, we tend to like the Magformers a little more, as they are easier to grip and the magnets seem to hold a little stronger. You can work on having your child describe the shape, color, size and/or number of the Magna-Tiles they want to use, sort the tiles by these same attributes (i.e., color, shape, size, number) or describe/talk about what they want to build. You can also make something and give your child clues (e.g., “It’s big and astronauts fly it to space”–a spaceship) so they can guess what you made!
Pop-up Pirate: Anything that pops out and surprises kids is sure to be a hit. This game is great to work on following directions, prepositions (i.e., location), and attributes attributes. You can hide the swords in various locations and then have your child go find them by giving directions (e.g., “Find the blue sword that is under the chair.”). This is also an easy game to incorporate simple 2 step directions (e.g., “Get the red sword before you get the green sword.”). We always modify things for our kids when needed, so feel free to do the same! You can limit the number of swords you put out to make it easier for your child. You can also work on increasing your child’s expressive language with this game. Have your child hide the swords and then give you the directions. Make sure your child is using attributes and prepositions in their directions (e.g., “Get the red sword.”, “Get the sword next to the chair.”, “Get 2 blue swords that are on the table.”). If your child is working on a specific sound, you can have them produce the sound or a word with that particular sound for every sword they put into the pirate’s barrel (e.g., if they are working on their V sound for every sword they have to say a word with a V in it).
What’s in Ned’s Head: Ned has some really weird (and really gross!) things in his head that you need to get out. Along with all the items in Ned’s head, there are matching picture cards which you can use to describe the objects your child needs to get out. Or you and your child can take turns describing which items you have to get out of his head. When making descriptions make sure to use attributes (i.e., color, shape, size, number), category (i.e., what group does the item belong to), function (i.e., what does the item do or what do we do with the item) and location (where would you find or see the item); these concepts help build your child’s vocabulary and language organization skills. All of our kids think this game is hilarious (especially when we feign not wanting to pull out the things they describe because they are “so gross!” or “so scary!”). You can even talk about the items and compare/contrast them (e.g., which one is your favorite, which one is the weirdest or grossest, why? etc)– just make it fun and silly and your child will enjoy it!
Picture Scenes (reusable stickers and magnets): These have been around for ages and continue to be a great way to work on a variety of language concepts. Most of these ‘scenes’ do a great job of targeting vocabulary in a particular context, such as a jungle or the beach, which is great for increasing your child’s use of specific vocabulary. When using these picture scenes, make sure that you withhold the stickers or magnets and have your child use correct vocabulary to request which stick or magnet they want! You can also give your child directions to help work on their understanding of prepositions and locations (e.g., “Put the shark under the big ship.”).
These are just a few more our favorite toys without batteries. If you missed our previous segments, you can see them here and here! Check back on The Speech Space blog for other fun ideas, toys and games you can do with your child to help increase their communication development.
And as always, if you have questions or concerns about your child’s development, contact us at The Speech Space! We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
At The Speech Space this is a question we get a lot. So, here is a quick guide about what you should look for with your child!
Babies start “talking” as early as 2-3 months old. At this age your child is doing what we call vocal play, where they make funny noises and seem to be testing out their equipment. Children typically acquire vowel sounds first (e.g., “oooo” “aaaahhhhh”), so be listening for those sounds. At approximately three month intervals in your child’s life, you should observe more and more “talking”.
In children before the age of 1-year vocal communication is typically referred to as babbling and/or jargon. Actual talking should begin around the age of 1 years old and your child should have at least 1 real word. A real word is a word that has meaning outside of your home and that someone outside your household can understand (not just by parents or siblings).
From the age of 1 years old to 18 months, your child should start to sound a bit like a parrot–to the point where you have to start watching what you say around them (they do always seem to love imitating those bad words, don’t they?!). From 18 months to 2 years old, there is typically a language explosion! Your child should start acquiring and using new vocabulary words frequently and also start using at least 2-3 word phrases.
From 2 years old to 3 years old your child’s language should continue to grow and develop at a rapid speed and their language should become more sophisticated in terms of organization (i.e., grammar and vocabulary).
Once your child turns two years old you should see a huge leap in their language skills!
Why do some children start talking later than their peers (professionally known as: developmental delay or language delay)?There can be different reasons for this.
Some children may have hearing loss due to frequent ear infections. Ear infections may be an indication of fluid in the ears, and if your child has fluid in their ears it will impact how and what they hear in the world around them, thus impacting their speech, language and communication development.
Another cause can be oral-motor (muscle) weaknesses. If your child has weak oral structures (i.e., lips, tongue, cheeks, jaw) this can impact their communication as they may struggle to experiment with and form a wide variety of sounds.
Sometimes lack of exposure to a rich language environment can cause delays as well.
At The Speech Space, parents often say their child was “just a really good, quiet baby” and that is a red-flag! Babies should not be quiet, and as discussed above, start their “talking” (e.g., babbling, vocal play and jargon) early on.
Some good news: Early intervention for your child is the best way to help! Children who receive therapy at the earliest opportunity have a better chance of catching up with their same-aged peers and meeting their potential later in life.There is never any harm to just “get it checked out” if you are having concerns. Always better safe than sorry! If you are having concerns or questions about your child’s speech, language and/or communication development reach out to us at The Speech Space! We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
Children often master their “R”s around 8 years old, so experts call R the “late 8”. However, in our experience most children will naturally acquire this sound well before that time and waiting that long (or longer) to get it fixed just makes it harder!
The reason some children easily acquire R on their own and other children do not can depend on a few things. Maybe your child has some low muscle tone through their lips, mouth, tongue and/or jaw (see our article here about fun activities you can do at home to strengthen up your child’s oral musculature). If your child needed help acquiring other sounds before R, it is likely they may need help with this tough sound.
So What Sounds Should My 4 Year Old Have?
By 4 years old your child should be able to easily produce the following sounds all the time in conversation: H, M, B, P, W, F, V, K, G, L, Blends (e.g., two sounds together– PL, SN, etc).
Most children by 4 years old will also have later developing sounds, such as: S, Z, SH, CH, J, Y, TH and of course, R and R blends (e.g., GR, BR, PR, etc).Another important marker to think about is how intelligible your child is (i.e., how much can other people understand what your child says). A child of 4 years old should be at least 85% intelligible– meaning people should understand at least 85% of what your child says, regardless of if the context is known or unknown.
If your child is having difficulty acquiring sounds at the appropriate times and others have a hard time understanding your child, speech therapy can help! Not only will speech therapy help your child acquire the sounds they are missing and help with their overall intelligibility, it can also help your child with their future academic skills.
Did you know children with articulation issues often have trouble with their pre-reading and reading skills? Speech therapy can help prevent and even work on these issues for your child.
If you are having concerns about your child’s development reach out to us at The Speech Space! We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
Does your child have frequent ear infections or bad seasonal allergies? If your child has these issues, they may end up with buildup of fluid in their ears. The fluid in your child’s ears blocks sound from making it efficiently and clearly into their inner ear (where the actual hearing is done) causing hearing issues. Difficulty with hearing sounds can negatively impact your child’s total communication development (meaning: speech development, language development and even social development!). If your child is not hearing how sounds are made correctly, they will likely have difficulty imitating sounds and words.
As we discussed in a previous post, children start their engagement and communication early on, so interference with your child’s hearing can impact their development, particularly as they get older. Not only can their speech development (i.e., learning how to produce sounds correctly) become impacted, but their language development and social development can become stunted. Think of your child’s early years as practice for these type of skills (speech, language and social skills) for later in their childhood and even later life. If your child is not able to practice their skills, how will they be able to correctly use the skills they haven’t been able to practice?? After all, practice makes progress!
Red-Flags that your child may have issues with their hearing:
frequent ear infections
their ears seem “wet” frequently
very bad seasonal allergies
limited babbling and/or jargon as an infant
delayed first words
not using a variety of sounds (with babbling, jargon and their imitations/words)
their speech sounds “slushy” or “nasally”
not responding when you call their name (multiple times)
seem to only react to what is in front of them or what they can see
If your child does have hearing issues due to fluid, your pediatrician and audiologist will determine the course of action to address their hearing loss; however, it is likely your child may need speech therapy as a result of the time they were not hearing correctly. Many of the children we work with at The Speech Space end up doing very well and can quickly progress through therapy once the fluid in their ears is no longer present. There is no harm in getting it checked out– better safe than sorry!
Feel free to reach out to us at The Speech Space if you are having concerns about your child’s development. We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems! Additonal Resources: Great article from ASHA on the causes of hearing loss in children
If you read our post about why straw cups are better than sippy cups, you’ll know that we have a lot to say about oral motor development in young children (because it impacts their speech development, among other things!). When we tell parents to work on strengthening their child’s oral musculature (i.e., lips, cheeks, tongue, jaw), we usually get a panicked look but we’re here to give you some great activities that you can easily incorporate at home. And trust us, they’re easy and fun!
1. Straws: Now, we already talked about using straw cups, but there are some other great ways to use different straws to help strengthen your child’s oral musculature. First, make sure that your child can use a normal sized straw to drink water. Water is a ‘thin’ liquid, which means it moves quickly, so it’s important to make sure your child is safe drinking water so they will not choke. Once they’ve mastered the ‘thin’ liquid, slowly try using thicker textures: (1) drinkable yogurt, (2) applesauce, (3) regular yogurt,(4) thin smoothies, (5) pudding and (6) milkshakes. For each texture, start with a wide or fat straw (think about the straws you use for milkshakes). Slowly work into a more narrow straw, eventually maybe using a twisty or bendy thin straw to increase the difficulty. Using straws in this way can help your child to strengthen their cheeks and lips, along with helping them to learn to retract their tongue.
2. More activities with straws (I know, seriously?!): Straws can also be used to do fun art projects or games, which can also help work on your child’s oral structures/musculature and also their breath-support (children with weak oral musculature will often have weak breath-support as well). Breath-support is crucial for appropriate volume (being loud enough) and also for specific sounds in speech development. For an art activity you can simply drop some paint on paper and have your child blow it around with their straw to make a beautiful and fun picture. You can also set up a “soccer game” by using paper (or if your child has great breath-support, a cardboard box) as the field and blowing cotton balls into the goal. These are just two fun activities to help promote strengthening oral structures and breath-support.
Both little kids and big kids enjoy playing this type of game. A fun way to work on breath-support and oral motor skills
Even little kids can get in on the fun!
Blowing the paint via the straw to make an interesting and fun picture
3. Bubbles: This is always a kid favorite! We recommend using the no-spill bubbles and our favorite brand is Fubbles. These bubbles make it easy to use in your house because even if an over-zealous toddler knocks it over, no mess! Bubbles are great for working on lip rounding, especially if you notice that your child has a weak pucker. To check if your child has a weak pucker, have them make a ‘kissy’ face and look at their lips. If your child’s lips can’t round or if they look like they’re more of a line as opposed to an “O”, your child may have a weak pucker.
4. Food Spreading: This may sound weird, but hang with us for a second. Lots of kids have weakness in their tongues (think, when kids say “wight” instead of “light”). This is usually due to weakness in the tongue. “Food spreading” (totally made up name) is when you put a sticky, spreadable food along various parts of your child’s mouth. Peanut butter, Nutella, frosting, Cheez Wiz- anything that will stick is good. Use a spoon and spread a bit of the food along the top lip or bottom lip or sides of the mouth and have your child try to use their tongue to reach out and lick the food off. Easy as cake (or frosting)!
5. Whistles: These can easily be the most noisy (and sometimes annoying) of the all oral motor activities, but we can help you out to make these more tolerable. We recommend making the whistles YOURS, but telling your child that you’ll be happy to share them. When you introduce them, make sure to instruct your child to use their lips (rather than biting the whistle with their teeth to hold it). Feel free to use them outside only or just for small pockets of time (to keep your sanity), but these are a great way to work on strengthening your child’s lips, cheeks, and jaw stability, which are needed for various sounds in speech. You can try using different types of whistles to switch it up and make it easier or harder. Whistles that are flatter (like this one or this one) are easier to use vs. smaller or more rounded whistles. .
6. Mirror, Mirror: Kids love looking at themselves in mirrors! Use that to your advantage when you’re in the bathroom, helping wash their hands or brushing their teeth and play a game in the mirror. Make silly faces, move your tongue from side to side, or alternate making kissing and then smiling faces and have your child try to imitate you. This is another good activity to strengthen oral musculature, but will also help you look at your child’s motor planning. In speech, motor planning is imperative to help put sounds together to form words. If your child seems to have a hard time smoothly alternating between different faces or cannot imitate your faces at all, this could be a redflag with their motor planning abilities.
By introducing these fun activities at home, you can encourage and work on your child’s oral motor development, which in turn will help their speech development!
If you are having concerns or questions about your child’s oral motor, speech, language and/or communication development reach out to us at The Speech Space! We offer free screenings, which take approximately 30 minutes, and can help identify potential problems.
It’s time again for our monthly segment: Favorite Toys Without Batteries! As we talked about in this post, we love toys without batteries. Below is The Speech Space’s March list of great toys that don’t make noise– so that you can get your child talking more while you’re playing!
1. Cariboo: One of our favorite games ever! In this game, you hide balls below an array of boxes with pictures of different objects. When you find all of the balls, the treasure chest opens– like magic! This game is great because you can target language in so many different ways. A few ways you can play this game: have your child open boxes based on color, category, number of objects, or even give multiple descriptions to work on their understanding of complex sentences (e.g., “Open the box with a green vehicle that can fly.”)
2. Disney Princess Cupcake: We always modify games when needed, and this one is no exception. There are two main ways we like to play this game to maximize working on language skills. The first way to play with your child would be to separate all cupcake pieces and then tell your child the “recipe” (from the recipe cards) or have your child give you the recipe to create your cupcakes. The second way you can play is by tossing the recipe cards and letting your child get creative by telling you how they want to make the cupcakes. This game is great for increased descriptive language (e.g., “I want the blue wrapper, tall chocolate cake, the yellow and white frosting and the pink flower topper.”) and following directions.
3. Dramatic Play: Dramatic play is wonderful for increasing language in children. It’s especially important for them to pretend with materials that they may or may not have experienced yet, but possibly will encounter. Doctors kits (check out this one), kitchen sets (like this one), camping and/or fishing equipment, grocery store carts and items, and restaurant toys (aprons, pretend bills, etc) are all great things for kids to get used to by pretending with them before experiencing them in real life.
4. Little People: The Fisher Price Little People were toys we played with growing up. They’re great for targeting pronouns (e.g., he/she, his/her), descriptions (e.g., “The girl who is holding a bird.”), prepositions (e.g., “Put the boy under the table.”), and actions (e.g., “He’s swinging and she will slide.”). Again, imaginative play is so very important for your child’s language development! Imaginative play with fun toys can help expand your child’s language in a structured environment while you help scaffold and expand their utterances.
5. Box of fun: This is totally made up and you can throw anything in! Think of putting in an assortment of small, unique toys your child may find interesting. Some of our boxes have a variety of windup toys (you can get a large bag on Amazon for under $15), bubbles, accordion tubes, silly putty, a spinning light up toy— basically a bunch of weird, silly, fun things! Have your child request items by function or description or name them, they can request help using specific nouns and verbs ( e.g., “Can you help me wind up with monkey toy?”), or they can talk to you about how each thing works or feels. Cheap and easy fun is the best!These are just a few more our favorite toys and ideas. If you missed last month’s segment on our favorite toys without batteries, you can see it here! Check back on The Speech Space blog for other fun ideas, toys and games you can do with your child to help increase their language and communication development.
And as always, if you have questions or concerns about your child’s speech and language, contact us at The Speech Space!
CAS is a motor speech disorder, which means your child has trouble saying sounds, syllables, and words. This trouble is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis, but rather the brain having trouble planning how to move the body parts for speech (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue). Your child knows what he or she wants to say, but his/her brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words.
Red Flags For CAS
The signs of CAS vary from child to child, but here are some red flags that are often seen:
First words are late and/or missing sounds
Limited consonant and vowel sounds used
Difficulty combining sounds (e.g., may mix them up, have long pauses between sounds, or delete sounds)
Simplifying sounds/words or replacing sounds/words for those easier to say
May have problems eating (e.g., very picky eaters, only like things that are easy to chew, very messy eaters, etc)
Appears to understand language much better than they can talk
“Groping” for sounds (i.e., odd and/or awkward movements of their mouth when trying to imitate or make sounds/words)
Difficulty saying longer words or phrases
It can be scary when you suspect or learn your child is not developing in the way you expected. And the lingo used when a diagnosis is given can be confusing and scary as well. However, as a parent it is important to understand a diagnosis in order to do what is best for your child.
If you suspect your child may have CAS or have been told your child has CAS, a complete evaluation of their oral musculature (i.e., lips, tongue, cheeks, jaw), speech sound repertoire, and their language skills should be completed to determine the most effective course of treatment for your child. It’s also important to take into consideration that there are often co-existing conditions (e.g., hypotonia, autism, sensory integration disorder, etc) that can be associated with CAS. Co-existing conditions would impact how your child’s treatment plan should be designed.
Research shows that children with CAS have more success when they receive frequent (3-5 times a week) treatment. A high-frequency and intensive treatment plan would help your child improve their motor planning abilities, as well as their coordination and sequencing of movements for speech sound production. Every child is unique and every child with CAS is unique as well! The duration of therapy your child may need depends on their severity, the commitment of parents and caregivers for completing homework, and your child’s personality. Your speech therapist should provide you with weekly homework to help guide you in the carryover of skills at home.
Our team is recommended providers on The Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America (CASANA): Megan C. Littlepage & Monica T. Phillips. Additionally, we are trained in PROMPT, Sarah Rosenfeld-Johnson’s Oral Placement Therapy, and the Kaufman Speech Praxis kits. We have extensive experience working with children with CAS and their families. At The Speech Space we really take a “team approach” for our kids–this includes our team, your child, you, and other caregivers and educators!, The Speech Space offers free 30 minute consultations to help identify potential problems with speech, language and communication development, as well as, for feeding issues. If you have concerns or further questions about your child’s development, please feel free to contact us at The Speech Space!Important Resources for CAS:
Did you know that using sippy cups may hurt your child’s speech development? Over at The Speech Space, we are huge proponents of straw cups, straw drinking and open cups instead of sippy cups for younger children. The type of cup your child regularly uses can impact their speech development! Here are a few reasons why at The Speech Space we like straw cups instead of sippy cups:
1. Oral Musculature (or the muscles your child uses to talk!) When children have strong oral musculature (i.e., lips, tongue, cheeks, jaw stability), they are more likely able to clearly imitate a variety of movements needed for speech sounds. This is the core for developing clear speech. Children with weak oral motor skills have a higher risk of having a speech impairment. Straw cups and open cups are one way of helping your child develop these critical muscles that they will need to produce sounds. While using a sippy cup does not necessarily mean your child will need speech therapy, it’s best to encourage oral motor development by using straw cups at home.
Note that he’s using those lips instead of biting with his teeth to control the straw
You can start your child drinking from a cup early on!
2. Swallowing Another area of your child’s development is swallowing, which requires strength from all those oral structures we mentioned earlier! When your child drinks from a bottle or a sippy cup, the spouts prevent your child’s tongue tip from elevating, often requiring them to stick their tongue out in order to drink. Liquid rushes out from sippy cups, so your child doesn’t use their oral structures while drinking. This can contribute to weaknesses in your child’s lips, cheeks and tongue.
By drinking from a straw cup or an open cup your child must use more movement and control from their jaw, tongue, lips, and cheeks. This additional movement (in part to prevent spillage) works on strengthening their oral motor skills and can contribute to their speech development!
This little girl is using her lips, cheeks and tongue to drink!
Notice this little girl’s flat lips and protruded jaw (and thus tongue).
3. Dental Concerns A final concern is liquid pooling around your child’s teeth when using a sippy cup. Sugars from drinks sit on their teeth causing decay (both milk and juices have sugars). Furthermore, if your child pushes their tongue forward to swallow (more likely with sippy cups instead of straw cups), there is a possibility their front teeth will get pushed forward. This might impact future speech development, particularly for certain sounds.
If you’re interested in trying out straw cups with your child, there are some great ones on the market! Some of our favorites are available here and here, but there may be cups you like more. As a parent, we know you are solving for a variety of factors (when traveling, something that doesn’t leak, your child may have a favorite color or character, or a handle so your child can hold the cup by themselves). The most important thing to look for in a straw cup is that the straw is not too soft (so your child cannot bite it too easily–that’s cheating!) and not too thick.
If you have any further questions or concerns feel free to reach out to us at The Speech Space! Until then, bottoms up…or straws up, we should say!
