Day: March 17, 2024

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has developed a new resource on feeding and swallowing milestones for the birth to 3 population. The milestones reflect the ages in which at least 75% of children from around the world have mastered the skill. The milestones can be found here: https://on.asha.org/feeding-milestones. In addition to the milestones, ASHA has also developed a brief video detailing feeding and swallowing skills that should be mastered by age, information on why some children may have difficulty meeting milestones, and who to contact if a child is having difficulties eating or drinking. The video can be found here: on.asha.org/feeding-milestones-video.

  Most children say their first word around 12 months of age. How can you tell your child’s first word from other sounds that they make? A word is when a child uses sounds consistently and meaningfully. When children say words, they may not sound exactly like adult words. It is common for young children to use word approximations. A word approximation is a word. Children simplify the way adults say words to make them easier to say. For example, a child might say “mama” for mommy, “baba” for bottle, or “ma” for more. Children usually make other sounds that aren’t words, called babbling. Babbling is when children use sounds that adults use to talk, like “b,” “p,” and “m” sounds paired with vowel