Category: blog

It is not uncommon for children who have difficulties in school to experience stress and anxiety.  While stress and anxiety might cause some of the same physical reactions in the brain and body, they are not the same thing.  Generally, stress is a response to external factors that we’re having difficulty coping with, such as a big test or an argument with a friend.  Symptoms of stress will  typically disappear once the situation is over. Anxiety is a reaction to stress. Anxiety focuses on worries or fears about things that might happen, as well as anxiety about the anxiety itself. It is a feeling that is often out of proportion to the real or imagined “threat”. Children with dyslexia can

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

Dust off that piano or the trumpet you’ve had in the closet- playing music can benefit your child in more ways than one! Students who learned to play a musical instrument in elementary school and continued playing in high school scored about one academic year ahead of their non-music peers in their English, math, and science skills, regardless of their socioeconomic background, ethnicity, prior learning or gender, according to a recent study from researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC). The study, which was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, analyzed the performance of more than 112,000 students (grades 7–12). They examined the test scores (mathematics and science achievement in grade 10 and English achievement in grades 10

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

Halloween can be stressful for kids with sensory issues, but following a few tips can help make the holiday fun for everyone. Give a preview Talk to your child about what happens on Halloween. You might read a book where a character celebrates Halloween, find a video on YouTube of children trick-or-treating, or create a picture story that explains in detail what they might see and do. If your child knows what to expect,  they’re less likely to have a negative reaction. Find sensory-friendly costumes Getting any child into a Halloween costume can be tricky, and for those with sensory sensitivities, it could be even trickier. Use comfortable clothes as a base for their costume or even create a costume

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

For children with sensory processing disorders (conditions which affect how the brain receives and responds to sensory information), the everyday sights and sounds of school can be overwhelming. Loud noises, bright lights, motion and other experiences can cause a child to have negative reactions and trigger behaviors that negatively impact their ability to pay attention and participate in the classroom. Many schools are starting to recognize the particular challenges that these children face by creating “sensory rooms”. Rooms typically have sections, or stations, with active areas, calming areas, and various types of sensory activities.  Some students have designated times which they spend in the sensory rooms while others come to the rooms as needed. The many benefits of sensory rooms

Joint Attention and ASD Joint attention, or “shared attention,” refers to when two people focus on the same thing. Joint attention is a skill that begins to emerge around 9 months and is typically established by around 18 months. It serves as a referencing tool that helps individuals communicate, but it also helps develop crucial social skills such as bonding and perspective taking. While more research needs to be done on this correlation, initiation of joint attention could be an important factor in identifying the need for early assessment and treatment for children with ASD. The ASHA Leader highlighted new research which suggests that the rate at which infants seek to initiate joint attention at 10 months can be linked