Author: Wee Speech PC

T It’s the holiday season! That means many parents are taking notes on what toys might make their child light up. There are plenty of electronic toys that excite kids with sounds, music, buttons and flashing lights. From a speech and language perspective, these toys may not be the top choice for increasing verbal output and facilitating language and play development. A study from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) which compared traditional toys to electronic toys found that traditional toys result in better child-caregiver interactions and thus lead to increased communication-learning opportunities. Traditional toys provide opportunities for imagination. Children are able to create play schemes which they can change the next time they play. The buttons, sounds and switches

Researchers have studied the effects of masking behaviors in adults with autism spectrum disorder.  ‘Masking behaviors’ include compensatory strategies that individuals with autism utilize to ‘conform’ to societal expectations. These compensatory strategies include: holding back their true thoughts, suppressing atypical behaviors, rehearsing conversation, or memorizing rules of interaction. A recent study published in The Lancet Psychiatry found a link between ‘masking behaviors’ and poor mental health. Additionally, individuals who utilize masking behaviors often have a delayed diagnosis (diagnosis of autism late in adulthood). Please visit bit.ly/Lancet-ASD for more information about this study and its implication on individuals with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis.

As a parent, when you first notice your child stuttering it can be very worrisome. The first signs of stuttering can appear when a child is between 18-24 months old. This is the age when there is typically a language explosion and children are putting words together and formulating longer sentences. Let’s look at what is considered typical versus atypical stuttering in children: Typical: · Children will repeat words one to two times. For example: “I, I want a cookie.” · Children will repeat phrases “I go, I go.” · Children may hesitate when speaking and use fillers such as “um, “like”, or “uh.” Atypical · Syllables, words, or sounds are repeated more than twice. For example, “I, I, I,

Do you have concerns about your child’s eating behaviors? Are you worried about your child’s ability to chew food effectively? Lack of chewing or insufficient chewing can contribute to swallowing challenges. Ask your child’s SLP to evaluate their tongue lateralization, chewing pattern, and rate of chewing to determine if your child is at risk for choking. Consider the following tips to promote safe eating: Cut food into small, length wise pieces (avoid circle shaped food) Limit distractions while eating to increase your child’s attention to their chewing Model appropriate bite size/rate Avoid movement while eating (jumping, dancing, running, laughing) Be mindful of the following toys that can cause choking if inappropriately ingested: balloons, coins, buttons, marbles/pebbles, small toy parts, pills,

A recent study at Johns Hopkins University examined the effects of taking pain medication containing acetaminophen during pregnancy. Results indicate that exposure to acetaminophen in the womb may increase the child’s risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Researchers examined data from the Boston Birth Cohort and found that children whose umbilical cord blood samples contained the highest levels of acetaminophen were approximately 3 times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD or ASD later in childhood, compared to children with the lowest levels of acetaminophen in their umbilical cord blood. Although additional research is needed to support this finding, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration urges careful consideration before using any pain-relieving medication during

Was your child born preterm? Do you have concerns about their language development? A recent study conducted from Florida Atlantic University compared expressive language skills between preschool children born preterm and full term. The results of the study showed that children born preterm demonstrated decreased language performance compared to full term children. These language areas included: language samples during play, grammatical skills, semantic skills and nonlinguistic factors such as attention and nonverbal intelligence.  If you have concerns about your child’s language development, talk with your child’s speech-language pathologist to inquire about a language sample analysis. https://leader.pubs.asha.org/doi/pdf/10.1044/leader.RIB1.24102019.20

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders reports that nearly 1 in 12 U.S children aged 3-17 have disorders relating to speech, language, voice or swallowing each year. Of these children, many have siblings, leaving parents with the challenge of equally dividing their time, energy, and attention between all of their children in their given family. Denise Underkoffler, a speech-language pathologist, recently wrote a book entitled “Everybody Needs a Turn” addressing the role of siblings within these family structures and explaining the challenges siblings may feel within these roles. Underkoffler explains that similar to parents, siblings of children with disabilities often experience an array of emotions pertaining to the given disability. Siblings may experience helplessness, jealousy, and frustration

A study by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that a delay in school start times – 50 minutes for middle school and 70 minutes for high school – resulted in positive changes. The study found that when starting school later, a higher amount of both middle school and high school students reported getting sufficient sleep each night (8-9 hours). Additionally, less students reported feeling too sleepy to do their homework by a significant percentage. The fact is that adolescents and teenagers need more sleep than they often get. Biological changes during puberty prevent teens from falling asleep early enough to get the sufficient amount of sleep with an early school start. Therefore, a later school start time could

Technology platforms such as Google Home and Amazon Echo are giving speech pathologists a means of facilitating independence, natural reinforcement, and motivation for individuals with communication challenges. These platforms provide support, organization, and information. Given a single phrase (E.g. “Alexa start my day”), the platform can transmit everything from the day’s schedule, to weather reports and news headlines to keep people informed and organized in their daily lives.For individuals with special needs, accessing this amount of information in a traditional sense would require a significant amount of time and effort. People with communication challenges may live more socially restricted lives, causing a sense of disconnect in the world around them. With smart-assistant technology, users can interact and keep informed. Smart-assistant