Day: January 9, 2022

Mealtimes in a household with a child with feeding difficulties can be stressful, not just for the parent, but for the child too! Increased stress at mealtimes often results in reduced willingness to try new foods. Luckily, there are many strategies available to create happy, enjoyable mealtimes. Below are some strategies that you can try at home!  Help your child transition to mealtime by giving a verbal warning (e.g., “dinner is in 5 minutes”) and setting up a meal time routine (e.g., go wash your hands then go to the table).  Eat meals as a family. Pass the food around family-style and allow your child to see you eating and enjoying food. You can assign mealtime roles, such as setting

  Oral language skills are the foundation for a child to develop the reading and writing skills they need as they start and progress through school.  Researchers  who study early language development have identified six conditions in a child’s environment that can promote language learning (Dickinson, D. K., Griffith, J. A., Michnick Golinkoff, R., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. , 2012). An easy way to create these conditions at home is through reading with your child. The six conditions that promote language learning are: Children need to hear many words often.  Between the ages of one and five years of age, children learn approximately 3-4 new words per day.  Books expose children to many new words, because they often include new, unfamiliar

As of July 2021, the ACT is now allowing students with communication disabilities to qualify for accommodations via their IEPs and 504 plans. These changes will apply for the 2021-2022 school year. To receive testing accommodations, one only needs to submit their IEP or 504 plan that shows the testing accommodations to ACT when they register to take the test. They are also offering accommodations to those without IEPs or 504 plans when documentation from a licensed professional identifies a physical or mental impairment, which limits one or more life activities. People can also submit current and official accommodations or an expired IEP or 504 plan if no longer a student. Deppe, J. (2021, September 1). Act Test Will Now

    Your child may be using augmentative or alternative methods (AAC) to communicate. When introduced to AAC, users may initially use it primarily to request. However, once they’ve reached success with requesting, how do we begin to move beyond that? Better yet, what other ways are there to communicate? Communication goes beyond just requesting items. Communication can also be used to ask and answer questions, to comment, to express our opinions, to protest and to retell individual experiences. How do we model these functions? One way is through aided language input, defined as a communication partner highlighting symbols on an AAC system as they interact verbally with the individual using AAC with a goal to teach language (Goosens, Crain,