Author: Breanna Barker MS CCC SLP

    The leaves are falling! What a great time to read The Leaf Thief By Alice Hemming. Our friend squirrel goes on a fun adventure trying to find the leaf thief. Prior to reading the story, take the time to make predictions as to who the leaf thief is. While reading, use story clues to determine if you guessed correctly. This story is great to talk about prediction, story clues, inferencing, characters’ emotions, and sequencing of events.  You can also do a book walk through looking at the pictures or  words that your child might not know. Write the words down and create a picture or sentence association.  This will help your child recall the meaning of the word

    Self talk is used to narrate your actions. It is a great strategy to increase your child’s exposure to new words. You can model self-talk when completing daily tasks around your baby or toddler. When narrating, think of your five senses (e.g., smell, touch, sight, taste, hearing) For example, if you are driving in the car with your child you can narrate what you are doing (e.g., turning the car on, putting your seatbelt on). You can also describe what you see while driving (e.g., a person crossing the street, the light is red).    Parallel talk is similar to self-talk, the only difference is you are narrating what your child is doing. This helps aid in vocabulary

    Symbolic play occurs when a child uses an object to represent or symbolize another object. For example if a child uses a banana as a phone, the child is participating in symbolic play. This is also called pretend play. Children start to expand their use of symbolic play from 3-5 years of age. So why is symbolic play important? The use of symbolic play helps in building cognitive skills. Additionally, symbolic play coincides with language development allowing children to create a rich and meaningful learning experience.  Your child is expanding vocabulary, learning new concepts, and creating associations. To learn more about symbolic play and language check the link below!   https://www.littlelanguagelab.com/blog/symbolic-play

    Vocal hygiene is developing healthy habits to keep your voice healthy. Like the rest of our body, our vocal folds are made up of muscles and tissues. Whenever you exercise or overuse your muscles, you might feel sore. Similarly, our vocal folds can experience strain when the muscles are overused. The goal of vocal hygiene is to lessen the impact of negative vocal behaviors on a daily basis. Examples of negative vocal behaviors include shouting, excessive talking, constant clearing throat/coughing, excessive caffeine, and whispering. When developing healthy vocal hygiene habits think of including the following:   Drinking 6-8 glasses of water Reduce excess taking (if you are taking for 3o minutes take a 10 minute break) Reduce shouting 

    The school year has come to an end!  How do you create a successful environment to practice your speech? First, identify your children’s speech goals. Write your child’s goals down on a white board or family calendar that is visible for you and your child to see. If you are unsure about the goal, reach out to your child’s Speech Language Pathologist regarding their current goals in therapy.  Second, discuss the importance of practicing with your child and other caregivers in your child’s life. Applying the skills learned within speech sessions into different environments can help to broaden your child’s understanding of concepts. There are several ways to incorporate practicing in your everyday life. You can incorporate a

What is a carryover activity? A carryover activity takes the skills we are targeting in our speech therapy session and carries them into the client’s environment. Applying the skills learned within speech sessions into different environments can help to broaden the client’s understanding of concepts. Additionally, the use of a carryover activities multiple times per week allows for additional practice of the targeted skill. There are several types of carryover activities that can be used to target skills, a couple of my favorites include picture scenes, I spy, and read aloud.    For more information about carryover activities and fun activities check out ASHA’s publication    https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/scaling-the-carryover-wall/full/