Day: August 31, 2023

PrelinguIstic skills are ways that children communicate without using words. They are good indicators of a child’s readiness to begin talking. Children who demonstrate these abilities appropriately are ready to begin communicating using sounds and words. *Attention abilities: A child’s ability to pay attention to a particular activity or person is relative to his/her age. Between 13 to 24 months a child should gradually develop the ability to sustain their attention for a few minutes to a preferred activity. If a child is unable to pay attention to a toy, they will likely demonstrate difficulty listening to the sounds and words their communication partner is saying in order to repeat them later. *Play Skills: Children learn by playing, so their ability to play appropriately is essential In order to learn to

Echolalia occurs when a child repeats what he/she hears either immediately after hearing the utterance (immediate echolalia) or hours to days after hearing the utterance (delayed echolalia). Echolalia can at times be self-stimulatory. The child may repeat lines from or his favorite movie or even repeat a conversation he/she heard. For example, during dinner time the child may say, “To infinity and beyond!” The child may do this to self-calm or for self-stimulation as the utterance is not related to the situational context; However, echolalia can also be communicative or functional in nature, in which the child repeats something he/she has heard in the past for a specific communicative purpose such as requesting or commenting. For example, when a child sees his/her parent take