Mommy Speech Therapy is a blog offering tips on helping your child with speech & language development
It’s been a couple weeks since we welcomed little Scarlet into our family and I wanted to share our exciting news! She is our fourth child and has been such a delight to have. Her older brothers and sister can’t get enough of holding her (and of course argue who gets the next turn). It’s [...]
I’m happy to have speech-language pathologist Sean Sweeney, share his perspective on some mobile applications that can promote language development as parents and children interact with them together. I have been so excited about all the possibilities these new mobile technologies such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, as well as the available Android devices [...]
I am so pleased to have Christine Ristuccia, the author and creator of “The Entire World of R,” share her introduction on teaching the R sound. I have always believed that the best way to teach any sound is to first isolate the sound and then target it in specific word positions such as the [...]
I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on articulation on Mommy Speech Therapy, which is such a huge topic that I could write about it for days! However, for this post I’d like to switch gears a bit and talk about some of the fundamental tools to help our children acquire their first words. Turn-taking [...]
Having just announced my first PAL Awards (Play Advances Language), recognizing toys, games and books that encourage language, I wanted to share why I am so passionate about promoting children’s language. Early language proficiency correlates with later performance in school—reading, writing, and critical thinking skills—and influences emotional, cognitive and social growth. From a baby’s first [...]
Playonwords.com (written by speech pathologist, Sherry Artemenko) has announced the top toys, games and books for 2010 that promote children’s language to receive the PAL Award (Play Advances Language). As the holidays are almost here, you can use this list as a gift guide, to help you seek out toys with an educational edge, having [...]
Teaching the “SH” sound may seem a little daunting at first, but I think you will find that with these tips and suggestions it isn’t so bad. In fact, our little ones that struggle with the SH sound in words may have no difficulty at all saying the sound in isolation (all by itself). The [...]
One of my jobs as a speech language pathologist is to know when a speech error is developmental or non-developmental. Developmental, meaning it is an appropriate error based on the child’s age, or non-developmental, which would then need to be addressed in speech therapy. One way of figuring out if a speech error is developmental [...]
For those of you that have read some of my previous posts on how to teach specific sounds you may have noticed a pattern. That’s because when teaching kids how to say sounds there IS a general pattern I follow even though each specific sound changes. I wanted to outline this for you because if [...]
I’d like to take a moment to commiserate with those parents struggling to teach their children how to speak clearly, and pronounce sounds correctly. This is Sam, my seven year old Star Wars fighter pilot in his Halloween costume last year. He has been struggling with his /r/ sounds for sometime now. Once in awhile [...]
The /p/ sound is the perfect sound to begin with for children who are highly unintelligible. It may be one of my very favorite sounds to teach because it is so visual and therefore can be taught quickly. As the child masters this sound it will build their confidence and make doing articulation drills more [...]
How do I account for only writing two posts in the last two years? The main reason is little Sawyer (our red-headed tornado) in combination with our 4-year old Princess, Sophie and 7-year old Jedi Warrior, Sam and well, it became the perfect storm and I was a bit overwhelmed. Now that Sawyer is two, [...]
“Mmmmmmmm,” the /m/ sound. A fun sound to teach, because even if your child isn’t using it correctly in all positions of words he/she most likely uses or has played around with this sound. ”Ma-ma-ma-ma,” is usually one of the first sounds we hear our little kiddos babble because the /m/ sound is made by [...]
I recently had a client that was struggling with the /t/ and /d/ sounds and realized I have not yet covered these on Mommy Speech Therapy, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on how to teach these sounds. I have grouped these sounds together because they are produced in the same manner and place. [...]
One of the most common questions I hear from parents is “How much language should my child be using for their age?” As our children grow up, there are certain “communication milestones” that we can watch for which will help us know how they are developing. I thought it would be helpful to go over [...]
I am a licensed Speech Language Pathologist and have been working in this field since 2000. I am also a mother to four wonderful kids who keep me busier than ever! I put together this blog to share some of the tips and techniques that have worked for me over the years in teaching kids to improve their speech and more effectively communicate. Thanks for reading and remember it takes time and patience with this stuff but it is so worth it!