In this tools post I give you strategies to use with your child for the purpose of stimulating early vocabulary development. Most of your child’s early vocabulary will consist of naming words. These words help your child make sense of the physical environment and get ready to make basic requests. Being able to express needs by asking for basic things is an essential skill. It is also importa ...[Read More]
Tools: Stimulating Early Vocabulary Development
Tools: Using Form Puzzles to Stimulate Word Imitation
Imitation of sounds and words is an essential step in learning to talk. If your child is late in talking or has speech that is unintelligible, you will find this activity helpful. Most two and three year olds love form puzzles. These are the wooden puzzles in which each removable piece represents a complete, easily recognizable object. Even some children as young as 18 months like them, as do some ...[Read More]
Learning the Speech Sounds
Your baby’s babbling consists of strings of consonant-like sounds alternating with an ah-like vowel sound. While these sounds resemble speech sounds, they are not “phonemes.” The baby is simply vocalizing while opening and closing its mouth. When you imitate your baby’s babbling sounds, you set the stage for baby to imitate your sounds. You match the baby’s sounds, and the baby in turn match ...[Read More]
Apraxia (CAS) – A Motor Speech Disorder
Most of us enjoy trying to recite a tongue twister faster and faster till the words get all “twisted” in our mouths. To the child with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), the simplest word may be a tongue twister. Hundreds of quick nerve impulses are needed to produce a single syllable. With that in mind, it is truly amazing that most children seem to learn to talk so relatively easily! For the chi ...[Read More]
CAS – What We Can Learn from Two Case Studies
In Childhood Apraxia of Speech, CAS, the brain has difficulty telling the mouth what to do to produce speech sounds. We might say that the messages from the brain get mixed up before they reach the mouth. The child has trouble imitating the precise movements required to say sounds and syllables. Simple words become tongue twisters. It is a unique disorder, which requires intensive speech therapy. ...[Read More]
Does My Child Have A Speech Problem?
If you are concerned that your child might have a speech problem, your child is probably talking some. But perhaps speech is not clear, even hard to understand. Most parents and teachers, think of a “speech problem” as not pronouncing words right, not using all the sounds. But speech problems can involve much more than speech sounds. Perhaps your child is just not learning words as fas ...[Read More]