How to Solve Back to School Worries

By Chatterboxes 


What’s a social story?

A social story is a concise descriptive tool, used to illustrate a situation, event, concept or desired skill. Social stories model appropriate social cues and/or behavior, different perspectives of

What are Social Stories™? Carol Gray of the Gray Center for Social Learning and Understanding developed Social stories™ and provide information on what to expect.


How Can Social Stories™ Help My Child?


  • Assisting with and preparing for transitions or new experiences, e.g., the first day of school
  • Supporting development of self-care skills, e.g., getting dressed
  • Encouraging appropriate social skills, e.g., turn-taking in play and conversation
  • Modeling expected or appropriate behavior
  • Demonstrating what is unexpected or inappropriate behavior
  • Understanding others’ perspectives and responses to situations
  • Managing unexpected or stressful events or changes to routine, e.g., a new teacher
  • Developing positive self-image/encouraging self-esteem

Scroll down for three free printables you can use to prepare a child for their transition back to school!


Three Concepts Mr. Potato Head can Teach Your Child!

By Chatterboxes 



Children should demonstrate their understanding of body part and clothing vocabulary, by approximately two years of age. Between 2-2.5 yrs, children should master various spatial terms including ‘in,’ ‘off,’ ‘on’ and ‘under.’ Create a language learning opportunity with your child, by focusing on the below three concepts with them, the next time you play with your “Mr. Potato Head!”

1) Clothing Vocabulary
Have Mr. Potato Head try on various clothing items, e.g., ‘hat,’ ‘shoes,’ ‘shirt,’ etc. Point out those clothing items on yourself and on your baby, e.g., “Mommy’s shoes!”

2) Body Part Vocabulary
As you build your very own creative “Mr. Potato Head,” you will add various body parts, e.g., ‘feet,’ ‘eyes,’ ‘nose,’ ‘ears,’ ‘mouth,’ ‘arms,’ and ‘legs.’ Talk about these body parts as you add them to Mr. Potato head, and identify them on yourself and your baby, e.g., “Where’s your nose? There’s your nose!”

3) Spatial Terms
As you add to and change your “Mr. Potato Head,” emphasize the spatial terms that you naturally use, while commenting on your play, e.g., “Hat on!”

Next, ask your child to follow various directions involving these spatial terms, e.g., “Hide the hat, ‘under’ Mr. Potato Head,” or “Take his shoes ‘off’ of his feet.”

By Chatterboxes 

Strategies for Improving your Child’s Articulation Abilities:​

-Create a positive, supportive communication environment that prevents communication breakdown and fosters confidence with speaking.  Try only asking your child to repeat themselves when it is essential for you to have understood what they have said or when what they have said is a sound, word, or phrase that they are capable of correcting.

-Repeatedly model sounds and words and encourage your child to imitate.  You may think that you are sounding repetitive, but children benefit greatly from repeated models.

-Hold objects closer to your face so your child is able to see proper sound production (i.e., mouth, tongue and lip placement for sounds).

-Try practicing target sounds within the context of games.  For example, while working on /d/ at the sound level, say “d..” each time before you take a turn in a board game. 

-Use multimodal cues to facilitate accurate sound production, including specific instructions, facilitation techniques, and auditory-visual cues. 

 -Consistent home practice is important.  It is recommended to practice for 5-10 minutes for 3-5 days per week.  Try working practice into your weekday routine.  For example, try practicing each weekday night before or after dinner or before bedtime. 

Cast a Sparkle on “Time Out!”

By Chatterboxes 


Transform your child’s next “Time Out” into a time where they can calm themselves and reflect on a recent incident. You might work together to create a “Calming Jar” and talk about how each of the sparkles can represent our thoughts. When we are feeling upset, or overwhelmed, our thoughts can rapidly swirl around our mind much like a blizzard; The Calming Jar helps us to settle our thoughts, as the glitter slowly and quietly comes to rest on the base of the jar. 

Calming Jar Directions:
2 tablespoons of glitter glue
2 cups of warm water (to dissolve the glue),
food coloring
Mix all above together in a mason jar

Then, during your child’s next “Time Out” shake up your Calming Jar and ask your child to take a deep breath and sit watching the sparkles inside until the jar settles and all the sparkles fall to the bottom.  This may visually calm your child and allow them to be ready for conversation.

The Top 10 Characteristics of Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)

By Chatterboxes 


Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a complex disorder that is often misdiagnosed. A definitive diagnosis of CAS is typically not made until a child has a repertoire of at least 100 words and/or following a diagnostic period of 3-6 months of therapy.

The American Speech Language and Hearing Association’s definition is as follows: “Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a neurological childhood (pediatric) speech sound disorder in which the precision and consistency of movements for speech are impaired. CAS may occur as a result of known neurological impairment, in association with complex neurobehavioral disorders of known or unknown origin, or as an idiopathic neurogenic speech sound disorder.”

Although there are not any formal guidelines for diagnosing CAS, (as it is a variable disorder and features change over time). The following features are considered to be hallmark characteristics of Childhood Apraxia of Speech and aid in the identification of a disruption in a child’s motor planning. 

These hallmark characteristics include:

1)  Inconsistent speech sound errors on consonants and vowels, in repeated productions of syllables and words.

2)  Disrupted and/or lengthened co-articulatory transitions between sounds and syllables

3) Impaired prosody (or rhythm of speech)

4)  Inconsistent errors in repetition of the same target, e.g., “bop” and “ba” for ‘pop’

5) Omission of initial consonants, e.g., “at” for ‘hat’ (indicating difficulty initiating speech)

6) Vowel distortion, e.g., “dug” for ‘dog’

7) Groping, or struggle, while attempting to find the appropriate articulatory positioning (of lips, tongue and jaw)  for certain sounds or words

8) A child’s ability to understand language (receptive language)  is much greater than his/her ability to express
language (expressive language)

9) Inventing signs/gestures and using nonverbal means of communication to compensate for difficulty using words

10) Speech that is imitated (following a model) is much clearer (easier to understand) than spontaneous speech (speech produced independently), although imitating speech is difficult.

For more information on Childhood Apraxia, please visit: http://www.apraxia-kids.org/ 

12 Strategies to Make Your Home a Fluency-Faciliating Environment

By Chatterboxes 


The way you speak to your child can have an impact on his or her speech and stuttering behavior. Children who stutter tend to stutter more in stressful speaking situations or when high speaking demands are placed on them. You can decrease the communication demands placed on your child by modifying the way that you speak to them.   “Stuttering results when demands for fluency from the child’s social environment exceed the child’s cognitive, linguistic, motor, or emotional capacities for fluent speech.”- C.  Woodruff Starkweather


Demands can be placed on a child by themselves, or by other listeners. Some examples of demands include:

  • Competition for talking time (lack of turn taking)
  • Time pressure
  • Negative listener reactions
  • Excitement/extreme emotion

Capacities are inherited tendencies, strengths/weaknesses, and perceptions which may influence the child’s ability to speak fluently.


Implement the following twelve strategies to create a fluency facilitating environment for your child:

1)  Speak slowly

2) Use a soft voice

3) Pause frequently in conversation

4) Use simple vocabulary and grammar

5) Avoid asking lots of questions, instead, use comments

6) Try not to place too many requirements or expectations on your child, especially during challenging or stressful activities (e.g., potty training, or school work)

7) Be patient, don’t interrupt your child or finish your child’s sentences for him/her, instead establish good turn taking rules

8) Allow time to pass between speaking turns, don’t rush your child

9) Maintain natural eye contact, even during a moment of stuttering

10) Avoid criticizing your child’s speech or using language like “slow down!” or “You’re taking too fast!” Instead, try to focus on the message your child is attempting to deliver

11) Talk openly about stuttering with your child and acknowledge that it can be difficult. You can use language like “sometimes speech is bumpy” or “that was a hard one.”

12) Listening Time: Set aside 15 minutes of time each day that your child can speak to you without time pressure. Your role is to listen to your child.

By Chatterboxes 

 

As you know,  pretend play is often a part of a young child’s daily playtime activities. Children learn through play, especially while using their imaginations! They engage in pretend play when they make believe to be someone else or use one object to represent another. Children love to pretend that they are adults with different jobs and tasks to perform—they might dress up like mommy, have a tea party with empty dishes, teach a classroom full of stuffed animals, fly the couch to the moon, or explore the deep, dark closet-cave!
The Hidden Benefits of Pretend Play
 
Pretend play is an important part of childhood. You begin to see pretend play as early as the toddler stage. Young children are learning about themselves, their families, and the world around them when they pretend play. Children are not just discovering creativity when they let their imaginations take over in play—they are learning many important skills. Below are some of the skills children can learn from pretend play:
 
#1 Social-Emotional Skills – When children play together, they practice sharing, turn-taking, and negotiating. In addition, children can better understand and manage their feelings by acting out certain experiences. Pretend play also develops children’s ability to empathize, because they have to consider the way others act, think, and feel.
 
#2 Language and Vocabulary Skills – Children have a variety of experiences to share with each other, and when they talk and play together, they are actually teaching and learning new vocabulary. They are improving their language skills when they have to communicate with one another in a clear and effective manner—for example, when they are explaining a story which requires a logical plot and sequence of events.
 
#3 Problem-Solving Skills – Children can come up with complex plans and solve difficult problems as they play. They have to determine who is going to play which role, where the adventure is going to take place, and what events will happen along the way. If a problem arises during their journey, the children have to rethink the story and negotiate a new situation to reach a final goal that is agreed upon by everyone. Pretend play also develops abstract-thinking skills, which are higher-level thinking skills, for example, using a prop, such as a spoon, as a symbol for something else, such as a microphone.

#4  Disciplinary Skills – Children practice rules when playing. A girl might put her doll in time-out for not cleaning up a mess she made. The girl is more likely to discipline herself and follow the rules given by others having been a disciplinarian herself.

Ideas to Encourage Pretend Play:
 
Make time for make-believe! Creativity takes time to develop, and need time to use their imaginations.
  • Show that play is valuable by playing with your children. Children realize that play is important if adults pay attention to them while they are playing and even engage with them in play.
  • Appreciate and talk to your children about their play. We • often say, “You are doing a great job working,” but we may never say, “You are doing a great job playing!”
  • Create an environment for play. It is important for adults to provide materials t• that children can explore and adapt in play, and it is also great if adults can provide a special “play place” or designated area for the pretend play and all the inspiring props.
  • Adults should monitor play, so that when play appears to be “stuck” or  unproductive, they can suggest new character roles, offer new props, or provide new adventures to inspire ideas, such as a trip to the park, aquarium, or museum.
Children get ideas for their play from books, movies, field trips, and everyday life, so if your children are interested in a particular topic, such as animals, take them to the zoo, read them a book about farm animals, or watch a movie about animals—they will be filled with ideas for pretend play! You might see your children reenacting the trip or scenes from the movie with friends. This helps them to better remember the experience, and it reinforces all of their newly learned information.

3 Components of a Fluency Disorder and 3 Ways Yoga can Help.

By Chatterboxes 


Many children who stutter have negative feelings and attitudes about communication and suffer from anxiety because of this. Fluency disorders often times have three components, called the “ABCs” of stuttering:

A: Affective
B: Behaviors
C: Cognitive
 
The B, or stuttering behaviors are the only part that others can see, while so much is going on in the mind of a person who stutters (A- affective and C- cognitive), making stuttering a much more complex disorder to evaluate and treat.

Yoga can be very beneficial to children who stutter. Coupled with speech-language therapy, yoga can improve speech fluency in children who stutter, by taking all three components of the disorder into account.

1) Respiration:
Breathing is also a very important to fluent speech. Yoga teaches children to learn to breathe from their bellies (“diaphragmatic breathing”) rather than from their shoulders (“clavicular breathing”). Diaphragmatic breathing allows for more substantial breaths and adequate breath support for fluent speech.

2)Positive Thoughts:
Meditation is a part of yoga, which teaches us self acceptance, the ability to let thoughts go, being in the moment and thinking in new ways.
3)Relaxation:
Yoga promotes overall relaxation, reducing anxiety and tension. Many children who stutter are anxious and tense. In a moment of disfluency, it is much more effective to relax and ease out of it, rather than fighting through it. A good example of this is a “finger trap.” The only way to escape a finger trap is by relaxing and gradually pulling your fingers out of it. The more force you use to pull, the more impossible it is to get out of it.

Yogarilla Cards make adding Yoga to your child’s Speech-Language therapy program easy and fun! There are 55 cards in each Yogarilla set. Each card highlights a different yoga pose, various modifications and additional challenges for each pose. Children love OTis the adorable and friendly gorilla who demonstrates each pose!

7 Risk Factors for Persistent Stuttering and 7 Factors Associated with Spontaneous Recovery

By Chatterboxes 

It’s amazing to learn that 50-75% of children who exhibit early stuttering will recover without direct intervention. Spontaneous recovery usually occurs within one year of onset. If you have a child who is exhibiting disfluncies, here are the factors that will help you determine if intervention is required:

 
7 Risk Factors for Persistent Stuttering:
 
1) Greater than 60% of child’s speech is dysfluent
2) Dysfluencies persist longer than 12-18 months after their onset.
3) Family History of stuttering: Almost 50% of people who stutter have a family history of stuttering
4) Sensitive temperament or negative reaction to dysfluencies (awareness of stuttering).
5) Concomitant speech and language difficulties or advanced language skills.
6) Late onset (after 3 years of age).
7) Gender: Male

 

7 Factors Associated with Spontaneous Recovery:
 
1) Early onset of dysfluencies (before age 3).
2) Typical speech and language skills
3) Decrease in dysfluencies during the 12 month period following onset.
4)Less than 50% of child’s speech is dysfluent.
5) Gender: Female
6) No family history of stuttering, or relatives who have recovered from stuttering.
7) Outgoing and carefree temperament.

 

Ten Tips for New SLP Graduates!

By Chatterboxes 

I sat in the front row of “Intro to Speech-Pathology.” On day 1, our professor introduced 5 guests who would be joining us to share their experiences and the impact that speech-pathologists had on their lives. Each of the adults were laryngectomy patients. As the guests sat before the class and shared their stories, I was overcome with emotion; tears literally streaming down my cheeks. My heart broke as I felt their pain.

Later that day, I came to discover that my emotions were partially due to the sadness that blanketed their faces, but at the same time, my tears were filled with the happiness of knowing that I had discovered my own path; at that moment it became crystal clear to me:

I was going to help others and I was going to do it by becoming a Speech-Language Pathologist.

Graduation season is upon us and I am once again taken back to the thrilling feeling of accomplishing the intense feat of a achieving a Graduate Degree in Speech-Language Pathology. Now, as a practicing SLP, graduation season reminds me just how valuable my graduate degree has been for me, in all aspects of my life.

I have been practicing for over 12 years as an ASHA licensed SLP, and I couldn’t be more in love with my career.

Being an SLP continues to quench my desire to help others. It has given me the opportunity to work alongside of other caring and devoted clinicians who continue to inspire me on a daily basis.

This field has brought me flexibility in my time, which I am most grateful for in my recent years as a Mom of two young girls. I continue to be sincerely touched by each of the relationships and friendships that have developed from the families with whom I have worked with in therapy and continue to be inspired by my colleagues at our practice.

After 12 years, and all of the changes that life brings, I feel stronger than ever that the work of an SLP fits me like a glove; what a true testament to finding an amazing field!

So that said, Congratulations new SLP graduates!!!  Welcome to this rewarding, exciting, and in demand field! There are so many people whose lives you will have the honor of touching.

On behalf of our team of Chatterboxes SLP’s, here’s our top 10 pieces of advice to you:

1)   Open your heart❤ to each and every one of your patients.

2) Be proud of your clinical handouts & homework; 📋 they are an extension of you.

3) Put yourself in your client’s shoes. 👠 See things from their perspective &  understand their needs.

4) Identify an SLP superstar 🌟 and watch them. Ask them questions and soak up as much as you can of their knowledge.

5) Never avoid seeking out help or advice ❓ from other SLPs!​ It shows your commitment to the field and your dedication to your therapy.

6) Develop a clinical style that fits; Let your personality 😆 shine through in your therapy and your work with others.

7) When working with a challenging patient, always focus on their strengths💪🏼 and meet them where they are at not where you want them to eventually be.

8) Strive for FUN. 🎉The more engaging you are, the more motivated your patient will be to communicate with you. Don’t doubt the learning that can occur during play!

9) Be sure your patients know their goals 📈 in speech therapy and why it allows them to communicate better! They will be more invested in therapy if they know what they are doing and why!

10) Never stop learning.  ✏Excellent Speech-Language Pathologists should never stop learning, despite their years of experience.

We wish you all the best, 💞and hope you treasure the opportunity to touch the lives of others in the field of Speech-Language Pathology as much as we do! 

www.TeamChatterboxes.com