Many families aren’t really sure where to start when they have concerns with their child’s development or behaviors. Going to your child’s pediatrician is always a good place to start. Typically, pediatricians will give you information to be evaluated by developmental specialists, speech therapists, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. Here are my suggestions:
Tag Archives: support
Getting Ready for the Holidays!
As you are preparing for the holiday season, don’t forget to revisit some of my seasonal posts!
Preparing for Travel:
Traveling with children can be a challenge, but it is possible! Check out this post before traveling by car or plane!
Preparing for Visits with Family:
Traveling with Children
Whether you are traveling by car, train, or airplane, you will have to plan on keeping your little ones happy!
How do I do that?
8 Reasons to Give Your Young Child Choices
Why Should I Give Choices?
- Choice making is a part of problem solving. When we make choices, we are building a base for further decision making and problem solving.
- Providing opportunities for children to make a choice boosts cooperation and engagement. You are asking for their joint attention and social involvement. These are great skills to practice for communication.
- Choice making is great for behavior management. Giving young children choices between two objects gives them some control within their environments. It is important for children to have some control but not all of the control.
- We are modeling language when we label items for choice making. This helps with receptive language. Your child hears you say or sees you sign the word for each item every time you give the choice.
- This is great for expressive language. It gives you the opportunity to have your child repeat the word in imitation.
- Boost pointing and gesturing skills.
- Making choices will give your child practice at answering questions.
- When we provide opportunities for young children to make choices, we are giving them a voice. We are showing our children that we are interested in what they have to say, whether it is verbal or through gestures and signs.
What should I do?
Speech vs Communication: Part I: What is the difference?
Part I: What is the difference?
When it is recommended that your child begin speech therapy or early intervention services, it may be because your child is not yet talking or socializing with others. If you have a toddler or preschooler, you may be experiencing this right now. It is important to understand the difference between speech and communication as you move forward and begin therapy. There is an important element that is often ignored, socialization. Being social and intentional is the difference between speech and communication.
Communication is the broad term. Speech is a form of communication. However speech can occur without a social component, intent, or meaning. Parents that I work with often tell me that they just want their children to talk. I know that what they really mean is that they want them to communicate their wants and needs.
“Getting ready for the holidays” has a different meaning for families of a child with sensory concerns.
When our children were babies, we got used to packing a special bag with all of the essentials for when we went visiting out of state, across town, or even to the neighbors house!
We were conscious of nap schedules, eating schedules and where an appropriate space to change the diapers would be. Planning ahead of time was typical. We calculated every possible scenario on the airplane or at the dinner table. Families of a child with sensory concerns do calculations too.
3 Things to Consider to Lower Anxiety during Social Engagement
Social engagement is such a challenge for so many children.
When our children know what to expect, anxiety may be lessened and follow through increased. Think about your own experiences and times when the unknown was actually more anxiety producing than the actual event. Social situations can be very upsetting for young children.
For the very young children and their families who I work with, I suggest the following: make everything as predictable as possible for your child so she knows what to expect.
Three main items to consider: environment, manipulatives, and visuals.
DIY therapy tool: Tea Party Table Cloth
Please don’t shut down when you see “DIY therapy tool”! For those of you who think you are not crafty, think again. This is a beginner craft and fun therapy tool that you can make yourself!
This cute tea set is a good example of an activity that can be used to meet many therapy goals. Of course it’s great for pretend play, but also for:
- fine motor
- social engagement
- matching
- labeling
- imitation
- sequencing
- using both hands to pour tea or wash dishes
- following directions, and many more.
Reinforcers: More Than Just Lollipops and Bubbles
When most of us think of reinforcers, we think of things like candy, high fives, and bubbles. Obviously those things are only reinforcing to people if they enjoy those things. 
It’s interesting to observe children because we see at a very young age what is and isn’t reinforcing. When the baby spits food back into your face, I think it’s clear that either it’s really reinforcing to see your reaction, it feels good, or it tastes or feels really awful.
On my very first session with families I ask what is reinforcing to their child. Sometimes families are quick to respond with: his truck, cookies, or playing outside. Those things can definitely be reinforcing to your child but there are so many other things that can also be reinforcing that you may not have thought of.
Don’t Journey Alone! Find your Parenting Tribe.
I often hear comments from families about their fear and disappointment over what they could have done better. What did I possibly do wrong? Why isn’t my child talking? He should be talking by now. Why isn’t my child looking at me? I call her name but nothing seems to work. Parenting is the most difficult job in the world and we just don’t give ourselves enough credit.
We all make mistakes. We all wish we could take back something that we said or did. But most of the time, we are there for our children to support them, care for them, and provide for them the best that we know how.
I love the quote from Maya Angelou that goes something like: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
I think this pretty much describes parenting. We all do the best that we know how until we learn strategies and techniques. Then we can definitely do better.