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  January National Birth Defects Month January 4- World Braille Day January 20- International Day of Acceptance January 24- Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day February Turner Syndrome Awareness Month February 15- International Angelman Day February 28- Rare Disease Day March Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month Kidney Awareness Month Multiple Sclerosis Month Social Work Awareness Month Trisomy Awareness Month March 1- Self-Injury Day March 1- International Wheelchair Day March 21- World Down Syndrome Day March 26- Purple Day for Epilepsy April April 2- World Autism Awareness Day May Better Hearing and Speech Month Ehlers-Danlos Awareness Month Mental Health Awareness Month National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month Prader Willi Syndrome Awareness Month Williams Syndrome Awareness Month May 1- Global Developmental

@speechsisters -A great resource for parents of early learners! These SLP sisters provide easy tips and tools for parents and caregivers to use in daily routines. @weetalkers -Carly and Katie are SLPs who provide doable tips and encouragement for parents looking to increase and improve their child’s communication skills. They provide communicative milestones, book recommendations, activities, and crafts to aid in increasing language output. @jenya_cma_lab -Jenya Iuzzini-Seigel MS. CCC-SLP is a professor at Marquette University and director of the Communication, Movement, and Learning Lab.  She specializes in diagnosis and treatment of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) and developmental language disorder. She is a great resource for parents and SLPs working with children who are diagnosed with CAS. @grahamspeechtherapy -Amy Graham

The Power of Mindset in Speech Therapy   There are two types of mindsets we often encounter in therapy; the first is a fixed mindset and the second is a growth mindset. A fixed mindset occurs when you experience challenges and you have a negative attitude towards yourself. A fixed mindset can often delay therapeutic gains as a portion of sessions may be spent focusing on factors that are out of your control, such as focusing on what went “wrong” in the first place. A growth mindset refers to identifying that there is a challenge and coming up with a plan to overcome the challenge. A person with a growth mindset often looks at the larger picture and recognizes that

    Joint attention is the action of two people sharing a common focus on an object or task. Joint attention tasks can be, for example, rolling a ball back and forth, looking at a book together, or blowing and popping bubbles. The ability to establish joint attention is important for developing social-communication  and cognitive skills. By age three children are able to maintain joint attention with a peer or adult.  One way to promote joint attention is by playing a game that requires turn taking such as holding a book and having the child turn the page. Additionally, if the child is playing with a puzzle or block, you can take turns stacking or adding pieces to the puzzle.

    There are many benefits of reading aloud to your children. Frequent read-aloud habits help build attention skills. Additionally, children’s vocabulary continues to grow when exposed to new vocabulary. While reading, stop and ask your child to retell part of the story or explain what a word means in the context of the story. Increased exposure to books will help your child not only learn about new words, but also increase their understanding of the sequence of events as well as their comprehension and inferencing skills. While reading, ask your child Wh-questions or have them make predictions based on the events of the story using the text to support their ideas This allows the child to engage with the

As the snow continues to fall, take advantage of all of the wonderful language opportunities the snow provides. Here are some examples of free activities you can do in the snow: *Snowball Fight -Talk about basic concepts such as big, little, cold, round, etc. while making the snowballs -Practice words with target sounds (e.g., ‘snow’ for /s/ blends, ‘ball’ for final /l/, and ‘throw’ for /th/) -Talk about action words including throw, roll, catch, scoop, hide, hit, etc. *Snowman -Talk about basic concepts such as big/bigger/biggest, cold, round, little, etc. -Practice words containing target sounds (e.g., ‘stick’ for /s/ blends and ‘mouth’ for /th/) -Discuss different vocabulary terms for body parts and action words (e.g., roll, make, put, get, etc.)

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is warning parents to pay more attention to noise in their everyday activities. Not only can environmental noise, such as traffic noise, or a television playing in the background, affect learning, sleep, and quality of life, chronic noise exposure can harm hearing in infants, children and teens. Common sources of indoor noise include appliances, infant sleep (white noise) machines, video games, toys, and televisions. Personal listening devices are being used more frequently, even by young children. The concern is not only with the volume of the noise, but also how long and how often children are exposed to noise. Children are more susceptible to harm because their hearing system is still developing. Additionally, the

To help educate parents, caregivers, and related professionals about the development of speech, language, hearing, feeding and swallowing skills, the American Speech Language and Hearing Association (ASHA) has recently updated its developmental milestones for hearing, speech, and language (birth to 5) and added a new resource on feeding and swallowing milestones (birth to 3). The communication (hearing, speech, language) milestones show the ages by which at least 75% of American English–speaking children have developed communication skills. Each milestone is supported by research and includes a reference list. The feeding and swallowing milestones checklist (which is also available in Spanish) reports the ages by which at least 75% of children worldwide have mastered the skills. They are based on international research

Siblings, older or younger, can be an excellent peer model for kids receiving speech and language therapy and this can be very motivating Have siblings help with turn-taking activities. Choose a fun game and get siblings involved by taking turns appropriately while playing a game with their brother or sister. Learning to take turns appropriately can help siblings get along better outside of therapy Siblings can help set appropriate goals; have the siblings help create functional goals in the home setting. For example, you may ask your child “when is it hard for you to understand what your brother/sister is saying?” He or she may provide examples which is helpful to establish functional goals at home Siblings can be helpful

As the holiday season approaches, check out some of these fun treats to make at home or during therapy sessions! Working together to make treats can address a variety of skills: following directions, expressive language, speech targets, executive functioning to name a few. Strawberry Santa Hats: https://www.iheartnaptime.net/strawberry-santa/ No Bake Christmas Tree Cookies https://www.thereciperebel.com/bake-christmas-tree-cookies/ Melting Snowman Cookies: https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/melted-snowman-sugar-cookies/91c4a274-78a1-4cba-b890-52563d6cd670 Candy Dreidels https://toriavey.com/candy-dreidels/ Kwanza Rice Krispies https://www.ricekrispies.com/en_US/recipes/kwanzaa-treats-recipe.html New Years Clock Cookies https://everydaydishes.com/holiday/new-years-eve-clock-sugar-cookie-recipe/