Imagine that you are a second grader, leaving the neuropsychologist’s office. You’ve completed diagnostic testing to evaluate the way that you think, read and write. You had to complete odd tasks, feeling nervous and increasingly tired. To top it all off, the neuropsychologist explained to your mom that you show characteristics of something called “dyslexia.” […]
As defined by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) a speech-language pathologist (SLP) works “to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive-communication, and swallowing disorders in children and adults.” The career of an SLP is very wide-ranging, yet overwhelmingly rewarding, as a person can work in a variety of different work settings and […]
This may sound odd coming from a speech-language therapist, but articulation errors are actually normal depending on the age of the child and the misarticulated sounds. While children are learning to produce the sounds of a language, they will simplify the words to make them easier to produce and coordinate. These simplifications are called […]
Reading is widely recognized as the ultimate language activity. Through reading a child encounters new vocabulary and language concepts. Not only does reading out loud with your preschoolers have positive benefits for their academic success, but it is a great way to build relationships with your child as well as help him or her develop […]
It is widely acknowledged that reading to preschool and school-aged kids is beneficial to their language development. However, is reading to infants just as important? The answer is yes! Reading to infants is important to their language and speech development. Not only does reading out loud to your infant benefit her brain development, but it also helps […]
The development of appropriate and strong communication skills spans from infancy to adulthood. Additionally, being a good communicator includes a vast arrays of skills. Often the people who are classified as strong communicators are the people that are not only good at expressing their own thoughts and ideas, but those who are even better at […]
Vacations are wonderful times to make memories and experience new places. Likewise, these experiences offer unique opportunities to expose your child to new vocabulary and practice language skills in a new environment. Although the hours spent in a car or on a plane seem anticlimactic and dull, this time offers the perfect opportunity to mix […]
Fitting in reading practice into a child’s daily routine is often a re-occurring battle between parents and their children. This may be due to several reasons; it may be a challenging and therefore not enjoyable task for a child or there may be the distractions from activities that are much more appealing than reading. Continued […]
Reading homework and practice is a constant throughout a child’s educational career from the very beginning when a child is learning to read. Children need to practice reading for a variety of reasons, mainly to improve their own literacy skills, but also to be introduced to new vocabulary and concepts. Obviously, reading practice is important, […]
Successfully producing speech sounds involves an intricate coordination between a person’s oral structures and muscles. The oral structures that are involved in speech production are the lips, teeth, tongue, cheeks and vocal tract. Although some structures have a more direct role than others, all play a role in producing intelligible speech. When one structure is […]