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Articles and Information About Autism

4/29/2013

In honor of Autism Awareness Month I've decided to post a roundup of some of the autism articles I've posted on my Talking With Toddlers Facebook Page. Autism Awareness Month is always celebrated in April of each year, and April is quickly coming to a close!

Before I do that, I want to quickly recap what autism is. According to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (www.asha.org): Autism is a developmental disability that causes problems with social skills and communication. Autism can be mild or severe. It is different for every person. Autism is also known as autism spectrum disorders. It now affects 1 in 88 children, and boys are more likely than girls to be diagnosed with autism.

Here are some very informative and interesting articles on autism:

What are your thoughts about these articles? Please leave your comments below. I would love to hear your opinion!

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The 5 Levels of Play

4/25/2013

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Did you know there are several levels of play? Most parents and caregivers probably think toddlers just play one or two ways, such as with toys, with another person, or a combination of both.

The following are play levels of social interaction that children go through over time. Each level requires more communication and language skills than the one before. Through play, a child develops language skills, physical skills, emotional skills, social skills, and cognitive skills.

Solitary Play
This level of play is also known as independent play. The child plays by himself and does not intend to play with anyone else.

Spectator Play
This level of play is also known as onlooker play. The child watches other children play but does not engage in play himself. This is when children learn to observe others. This play level can show a child’s attention and awareness skills.

Parallel play
In this level of play, children play side by side but do not communicate with each other or share toys. The child is playing ‘beside’ rather than ‘with’ the other kids who are near him. A child is in this stage when he can play alone, but the activity he is doing is similar to the activity that other children next to him are doing.

Associative Play
In this level of play, there is no organizational structure. Children still play independently but share toys and other items that they are playing with. This level shows the child’s awareness of other children, although there is no direct communication between them other than sharing of toys.

Cooperative Play
This is the final stage of play and is organized. Children are already playing together, sharing toys, and communicating with each other. Children participate in group games and other highly structured play activities.

As a toddler speech therapist, parents sometimes ask me, "My toddler doesn't play with other children (at daycare, school, church, etc.). Is this normal?" Hopefully the stages of play can help you understand why. During the toddler years you'll find your child playing by himself (solitary play), playing alongside another toddler (parallel play), or playing alone but sharing toys with their friends (associative play). You should see your toddler progressing through these stages until he can begin to play with other children his age in an organized way while communicating with them and sharing toys. This level of play will probably come after the toddler years.

If you have concerns that your toddler is not progressing through these play stages, you should talk to your pediatrician or a speech-language pathologist for tips to help your toddler. These professionals may suggest an evaluation to determine other factors and needs concerning the development of your child.

To learn why play is so important be sure to read The Power of Play-The Best Way to Teach Your Toddler to Talk. To learn how to play with your toddler, check out The Power of Play-How to Play With Your Child to Boost Toddler Speech Skills.

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Talk With Your Toddler About Earth Day

4/22/2013

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Today, April 22, is Earth Day! Earth Day is a day that is designated to celebrate our planet earth, appreciate nature, and learn how we can protect our environment. Did you know that over 100 different countries join together to celebrate Earth Day?

Now is a great time to start teaching your toddler about Earth Day. There are many different crafts, activities, and recipes you can do together with your toddler. Check out these Kid Friendly Earth Day Snacks to tame your toddler's tummy. Make an Earth Day craft with your toddler to keep him busy and entertained. You can also try these Earth Day activities to help your toddler talk and communicate:

Clean up the yard
Let your toddler help you keep your yard looking great all year! Pick up sticks and count them with your toddler. Talk about which sticks are big and which sticks are little. Allow your toddler to water the plants. Talk about the water and how it's wet and cold. Explain to your toddler that it will make the plants grow big.

Take a nature walk
Walk around your local park or neighborhood. Point out the trees, flowers, plants, and leaves to your child. Talk about them and touch them. Smell the flowers and listen to the leaves blow in the wind. Get the senses involved!

Target the color green
Point to all things that are green outside such as the grass and trees. Talk about them with your toddler. Inside, you can find toys that are green and things in your house that are green. Let your toddler sort colors while focusing on the color green.

Keep in mind that you can do these activities with your toddler all year round, not just on Earth Day. It's very important that we keep our planet beautiful for generations to come!

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The Power of Play-How to Play With Your Child to Boost Toddler Speech Skills

4/18/2013

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Last week I wrote a blog post called, The Power of Play-The Best Way to Teach Your Toddler to Talk. This week I'm going to talk about how to play with your child to increase toddler speech development.

Now that you have learned why play is important and the different levels of play, let’s talk about how you can play with your child to help him talk and communicate faster.

The first way to play with your toddler, and probably what comes to mind for most parents, is by playing with toys. Most children love to play with toys because they are fun and toys are something that he/she finds interesting. Just make sure the toys that your toddler plays with are age-appropriate.

Some age-appropriate educational toys for toddlers include stacking blocks, baby dolls, wooden peg puzzles, toy trains, and toy cars. There are a variety of words to target with these toys. Have your child repeat them or attempt to repeat them and make sure he/she understands them.   Some of these words include: “up”, “more” (when playing with stacking blocks), “eat”, “drink” (when playing with baby dolls), “in”, “out” (when playing with peg puzzles), “go”, “stop” (when playing with toy trains and toy cars). While a Vtech Laptop is a really great educational toy for older children, it won't do much good for a toddler!

The second way to play with your child is through creative play. Children up to age three will benefit greatly from creative play. Creative play can again involve toys or just imaginative play between you and your toddler. Examples of creative play include dressing up in costumes of your toddler’s favorite characters, making up songs, and pretending you and your toddler are his/her favorite animals. Also, try to find toys and other items that can help with creative play. Use your imagination!

Keep in mind that in order to make play work you must make time to play with your toddler every day. Make play activities fun and engaging. Sit down on the floor with him or her, play dress up, or play your child’s favorite game. Just play with your toddler to help develop his/her creativity, imagination, thinking and speech and language skills! Most importantly remember to praise your toddler when he/she tries to communicate with you while playing.

To learn more speech and language tips to help your toddler talk and communicate faster, be sure to check out my book on Amazon Kindle, Talking With Todders - 52 Tips to Boost Speech and Language Skills.

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April Showers Bring May Flowers and Early Language Development

4/15/2013

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As a child I remember my sister coming home from school one day so excited to tell my mom and me a joke she heard from a friend. It went something like this:

Joke "If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?" The punchline: "Pilgrims!"
Did you get it? As silly as that joke is, it still makes me laugh even today!

I'm not sure about where you live, but the southern part of the United States sure has experience a lot of rain this month and last month. Just because it's raining outside, it doesn't have to spoil your fun and early language development activities with your toddler. Sure there are many games and toddler speech activities you can do inside, but why not take them outside as long as it's just a drizzle?

Here is an article from www.about.com called What to Do on Rainy Days. It lists games and activities you can do with your toddler outside on a rainy day. You can use these ideas and turn them into speech activities for toddlers. Target vocabulary, focus on the senses, and listen to your toddler giggle with joy!

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11 Step Program for Those Thinking Of Having Kids

4/12/2013

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This 11 step program has been posted around facebook the last few years. Maybe you have seen it or maybe you haven't. It's too funny not to post, and oh so true! Honestly, I don’t know who wrote it but it had me laughing out loud. Enjoy this Friday Toddler Funny post!

Lesson 1

1. Go to the grocery store.

2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.

3. Go home.

4. Pick up the paper.

5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their…

1. Methods of discipline.

2. Lack of patience.

3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.

4. Allowing their children to run wild.

5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.

Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3

A really good way to discover how the nights might feel…

1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)

2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.

3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.

4. Set the alarm for 3AM.

5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.

6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.

7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.

8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.

9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4

Can you stand the mess children make? T o find out…

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.

2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.

3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.

4. Then rub them on the clean walls.

5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.

6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5

Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.

1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.

2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Time allowed for this – all morning.

Lesson 6

Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.

1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.

Leave it there.

2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.

3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.

4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7

Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8

1. Hollow out a melon.

2. Make a small hole in the side.

3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.

4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.

5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.

6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re thinking What’s ‘Noggin’?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10

Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying ‘mommy’ repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each ‘mommy’; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the ‘mommy’ tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

This is all very tongue in cheek; anyone who is parent will say ‘it’s all worth it!’ Share it with your friends, both those who do and don’t have kids. I guarantee they’ll get a chuckle out of it. Remember, a sense of humor is one of the most important things you’ll need when you become a parent!

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The Power of Play-The Best Way to Teach Your Toddler to Talk

4/11/2013

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The number one way to get your toddler talking and communicating is through play. Why play? Because all children and toddlers learn through play. Play creates the desire for your toddler to talk and communicate. Play is fun and is a natural part of a child’s development. It helps develop a child’s cognitive, physical, social, and emotional skills. Through play, parents are also able to connect with their children and devote that special one-on-one time that all children enjoy.   Not only is play entertaining for your toddler, it can also be fun for you! You can play peek-a-boo, go to the park, do an activity, or play with toys. The possibilities are endless!

Play is considered to be a developmental skill because it is a natural activity that children do. If a child does not play then it can be a sign that his or her language skills are delayed. The reason is because play is a representation of a child’s language skills. This is just one of the many reasons why play is important. Some research also suggests that play and cognition are interrelated. The more advanced a child’s play skills are, the more developed his cognitive skills may be.

Since toddlers love one on one time with parents and family members, try to make it a priority to include a fun activity for at least 30 minutes each day. If 30 minutes is too much due to busy schedules, break it up into smaller chunks of time. Get the entire family involved in play to make your efforts at increasing your toddler’s speech and language skills effective. Be sure to introduce your toddler to new vocabulary words, action words, and teach him or her about taking turns. This is how you can build your toddler's speech and language skills.

Check back next week to find out how to play with your child to build toddler speech and language skills. He will never know you're trying to help him learn. Play is a powerful strategy!

To learn more speech and language tips to help your toddler talk and communicate faster, be sure to check out my book on Amazon Kindle, Talking With Todders - 52 Tips to Boost Speech and Language Skills.
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Praise for Your Toddler

4/9/2013

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All children, from toddlers to teenagers, love to be praised when they've done a great job. Praise encourages your child to continue doing good things, and children thrive on positive reinforcement. Sometimes verbal praise is much better and longer lasting than receiving objects and things as a reward (however, they do have their place and time!).

Make sure to give your toddler lots of praise when he or she makes attempts at communicating. Clap and celebrate when your child tries to talk, uses gestures, or takes you to a wanted item. Be specific with your praise. For example, say “Good job talking.” or “Great job telling me you want more juice.” Once you give your toddler praise you’ll notice that he or she will continue to try to communicate with you which will get your toddler talking and communicating even faster!

Here are some other things you can say to verbally praise your toddler when he or she tries to communicate with you:

I knew you could do it!

Good for you!

Excellent!

I like the way you said that!

Sounding great!

You've got it!

You're on your way!

You tried very hard!

Now you've got it!

I'm very proud of you!

Don't forget to make your praise specific to your child. Add a high five or big hug to your verbal praises. Praise will go a long way!

To learn more speech and language tips to help your toddler talk and communicate faster, be sure to check out my book on Amazon Kindle, Talking With Todders - 52 Tips to Boost Speech and Language Skills.
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Autism Awareness Month

4/4/2013

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Did you know that April is National Autism Awareness Month? The first national Autism Awareness Month was announced in April of 1970 by the Autism Society. The goal is to educate the public about autism and its influence on people.

As a speech-language pathologist I'm always asked questions about what some parents have referred to as the "a" word. I've worked with many toddlers and older children who have been diagnosed with autism over the years. They have been some of the most rewarding, yet challenging clients, too.

So, what is autism? According to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (www.asha.org): Autism is a developmental disability that causes problems with social skills and communication. Autism can be mild or severe. It is different for every person. Autism is also known as autism spectrum disorders. It now affects 1 in 88 children, and boys are more likely than girls to be diagnosed with autism.

You can learn more about Autism, its signs and symptoms, causes, and what speech-language pathologists can do to help on the American Speech-Language Hearing Association website.

One of my most memorable cases I saw for speech therapy was a little boy that I"ll call J. He was referred to me by the early intervention program at 18 months because he was not talking (according to his mother). He later received an autism diagnosis which really helped me be able figure out what to do to help him communicate. As a result of early intervention speech therapy and special instruction, J was more social with his peers in his preschool class, he was talking in simple words and phrases to express his wants and needs, and was learning to play appropriately with toys. Of course J needed to continue with speech therapy once he left the early intervention program, so he was able to receive services through the public school's program at that time. A few months later, I started working with J's younger brother. When his mother found out I would be the younger brother's speech therapist I can still remember what she said to me. She said, "I'm so glad you will be working with my other son. You gave J. a gift that I would never be able to give him. You gave him the gift of communication." Wow! No one had ever complemented me this way. It was the most touching thing I've ever heard from a parent. This is the reason why I am a speech-language pathologist - I can make a big difference in the lives of others.

To learn more about National Autism Awareness Month please visit the Autism Society's website, http://www.autism-society.org/about-us/national-autism-awareness-month/.

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The Parrot Stage

4/2/2013

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One of my most favorite developmental speech stages is the imitation phase or as I like to call it, the parrot stage. This stage begins around 7 months to 12 months old. Babies and young toddlers will try to repeat the sounds they hear and some of the words they hear. They also begin to mimic gestures such as waving goodbye, pointing, or nodding their heads "yes" and "no."

I have twin girls who are now 14 months old as of last Friday (March 29th). They are definitely in the parrot stage, and I know it will continue to progress as the months go by. I will have to watch what I say the older they get, though! They are hilarious and love to talk. They will wave, clap, point, put their arms up in the air, and shake their heads. They can now bark like their dog, Bear, and growl like a bear when we make the sounds. Just yesterday, my husband and I took them for a walk in our neighborhood, and they barked along with a dog they heard on our route. They will say "uh-oh" when they drop something, "go" when we say "ready, set, go" before rolling a ball or knocking down blocks, and "yay" when we praise them for doing something good. One of my twins now repeats "no, no, no" when I tell her no and try to redirect her from what she was doing that is not allowed in our house. Of course I try not to laugh, but it's getting really tough these days! My girls also say "dada" constantly and "mama" only when they want or need something (so typical!). Usually I hear it around bedtime when they're exhausted from the day's activities. Every little gesture, sound, word, and attempt at words makes their speech therapist mama so happy and proud of their accomplishments, especially because they were born 8 weeks early!

But, what if your child is not imitating your sounds, words, and gestures? What should you do? First, you should talk as much as you can to your child. Talk about what you're doing and talk about what your toddler is doing. You can also perform gestures such as clapping and waving to see if your toddler will imitate you. Pair these gestures with sounds such as "yay" for clapping or "hi" and "bye" when waving. Say "whee" when sliding down a slide or swinging, and "uh-oh" when your toddler drops something. The key is to be consistent with your words, sounds, and gestures. Your toddler should eventually catch on and repeat what he or she hears you say and sees you do. Don't forget to praise your toddler when he or she imitates you or attempts to imitate you. By praising your toddler, you're encouraging him or her to communicate and imitate you even more.

To learn more speech and language tips to help your toddler talk and communicate faster, be sure to check out my book on Amazon Kindle, Talking With Todders - 52 Tips to Boost Speech and Language Skills.

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Articles and Information About Autism

The 5 Levels of Play

Talk With Your Toddler About Earth Day

The Power of Play-How to Play With Your Child to Boost Toddler Speech Skills

April Showers Bring May Flowers and Early Language Development

11 Step Program for Those Thinking Of Having Kids

The Power of Play-The Best Way to Teach Your Toddler to Talk

Praise for Your Toddler

Autism Awareness Month

The Parrot Stage

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