Author: Margaret Morris MS CCC SLP

Music can be used effectively to help your child develop their language and speech skills.  It is motivating, familiar, rhythmic and just plain fun!  It can also stimulate motor and social skills. Music can have a regulating effect on your child, making them more receptive to listening, attending and learning.  By incorporating gestures along with the lyrics, you can support learning and encourage your child’s active participation. If your child is not yet verbal or is minimally verbal, music can help teach gestural imitation skills. By incorporating gestures along with the lyrics, you can reinforce concepts and encourage your child’s active participation. The simple and repetitive nature of songs is an excellent way to reinforce first words. Songs that have

Most parents experience some sort of stress as a normal part of the parenting experience.  For parents of children with special needs, the intensity of stress can be amplified. The impact of chronic stress related to caring for children with more intense needs has been documented.  Studies show that parents of children with developmental, psychiatric or learning disorders are more likely than others to experience anxiety, depression and insomnia.  Being under chronic stress also puts these parents at higher risk for a variety of medical issues. You can read an article from the Child Mind Institute on ways to avoid parenting burnout and take care of your own physical, emotional and social health here.  It’s important that, as parents of

Even in normal times, it can be easy to let screens and technology dominate our lives, and right now, it’s even easier.  During the coronavirus pandemic, as our daily lives have become more digital, kids not only need to use technology for schoolwork, therapy, or camps and classes,  it’s also often their means for social connection with family members and friends. A number of studies have demonstrated that increased screen time can negatively affect children’s mood, sleep and concentration.  Now more than ever, it is important that families balance screen time with non-tech, screen-free activities. Here’s a few ideas for some low-tech family time: Have a weekly game night: Pull out some classic board or card games, or try no-cost

During speech therapy, your speech pathologist will teach your child new speech and language skills needed to further develop their ability to communicate effectively.  It is really important that your child gets many opportunities to practice these new skills outside of the treatment room. It can be difficult to come up with ideas for incorporating your child’s speech goals into their everyday activities.  Here are a few ways you can use daily routines to help your child practice using their verbal skills.  These suggestions focus on increasing intentional communication, requesting, labeling and expanding utterances.  First, make sure your child wants or needs the object or action. Then, he must request it in order to receive it.  This can be at

Children’s ability to self-regulate is a crucial component in the development of their language and literacy skills. In young children, self-regulation refers to their ability to manage their thoughts and emotions in order to be calm and alert enough to pay attention to tasks, absorb new information and to inhibit behaviors that might interfere with accomplishing tasks. Michigan State University researchers have found that children who demonstrate self-regulation at an earlier age have higher language and literacy skills throughout preschool to at least the second grade.  Specifically, those children showed earlier and higher development of decoding and reading comprehension and higher levels of vocabulary development. Parents can help children develop better self-regulation by structuring their home environment to include adequate

Soft skills are personal attributes that influence how well you can work or interact with others. These are the “people skills” that can affect our relationships and interpersonal interactions. The term covers a wide range of skills and includes communication, a positive attitude and politeness, professionalism, teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking and time management. As we prepare middle and high school students for the workplace, the traditional focus is on academic and technical/hard skills. But soft skills are also critical to students’ future success at work.  Developing soft skills can be especially difficult for students with social-pragmatic and communication challenges. Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) are in a position to help by targeting what will eventually become workplace soft skills. We can