A Note from Hint Mama...How to Tell if Your Toddler Needs Speech Therapy.

Thanks to Hint Mama for letting me guest post on her blog about developmental speech and language milestones. A question arose as to how do parents know if their toddler's speech or language development is progressing on track. Click here to read the post...

Great Hint!
Michelle Lachman
Schedule your free consultation today: 1.408.365.4423 / mlachman.speech@gmail.com

Earth Day is for Sorting (the Trash)

There is nothing like a real world activity to teach and target our little ones language and concepts.

Earth day is the perfect opportunity to talk about why we need to keep our planet green and ways to do it. Different activities can be used to target vocabulary, answering simple wh- questions, classification, and more. The most popular activity I've discovered is sorting a pile of trash and recycling items.

So how do we know what needs to be recycled? The CalRecylce site will give you a refresher on what can and can't be recycled. For this activity, I suggest keeping it simple. The categories I like to have my kids sort into are:

Plastic     Metal     Paper     Organic     Trash

For little ones, first define each of those terms. How do we know something is made of plastic? Is it clear and bendable? What does organic mean? Was it something we ate? Does it grow in the ground? Now decide. Put it in the trash? Recycle? What's it made of? A great opportunity for critical thinking would be to ask can we save it? Can it be reused?

One of my favorite activities is a bird feeder made out of cartons or plastic bottles. I prefer to make something useable that is also an art activity. That way it serves a function without needing to be displaying the children's art museum that is my house.

If you can't do it with real garbage or if your kids are so into sorting (time to recruit them for chores), use this cut and sort activity.

And here in the Bay area, it's going to be another beautiful weekend. There are a plethora of Earth Day events to choose from if you want to spend it outside. Here are some:

Earth Day in Santa Cruz - April 18
Earth Day at the San Francisco Zoo - April 19
Muir Woods Free Admission Day - April 18-19
Earth Day Celebrations - Los Altos Hills, April 26

Happy Earth Day!
Michelle Lachman
Schedule your free consultation today: 1.408.365.4423 / mlachman.speech@gmail.com

P-A-C-E Yourself. Or Just Your Speech.

Did your mother ever tell you to pace yourself? My mom certainly did.

I find myself telling my kids to slow down when they are eating, going down the stairs, and even when they are trying to recall something that happened during the day. Often, the race to talk comes from competition for talk time (for those with siblings), competition for a parent's attention or just excitement.

Just in time for the weekend, when we should, as families, be slowing down but are instead sometimes speeding up to get all of the chores, errands, birthday parties and whatever else done.

When it comes to slowing down a child's speech, telling them to "slow down" doesn't often help. Either because their slowed down speech doesn't last of because they don't really understand what they should be slowing down. So I'll share one of my most trusted tools for kids who's goal is to pace themselves. It's easy to make on your own, travel with and model for your kids. It's a pacing board.

Here is a list of the ways I use pacing boards in therapy:

- To pace out sentences such as "I-want-milk-please."
- To help slow down fast talkers. I demonstrate how to slow down their speech with use of a pacing board and let them imitate me.
- To help kids who are omitting sounds or words. A pacing board can help model to them that they need to say every sound in a word.

Here is a picture of a pacing board. I show the kids I treat how to tap a flower for each word or syllable. You can also place a doll on a flower for each word,  drive a car onto the board, or put a cracker. The possibilities are endless.

 

For those of you with Thomas the Tank Engine trains, you can do similar activities with the separate cars. Here's a picture from a parent of a child I treat. She used soft blocks which her daughter squeezed for each sound they were trying to articulate. 

How do you slow down?

Michelle Lachman
Schedule your free consultation today: 1.408.365.4423 / mlachman.speech@gmail.com

Pajama Story Time at the San Jose Public Library

Did you know that every 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month the San Jose Public Library hosts a Pajama story time for kids. They encourage you to bring your kids in their pajamas and with their teddy bear. That's great in my opinion since you can get home after story time and go right to bed!

The next story time is this Thursday February 12th at 6:30 PM.

We all know that reading to our kids is important. But one of the most important reasons it is important is because when reading to our kids, we are fostering phonological awareness skills.

Phonological awareness is the ability to understand that words are made of sounds. Your child does not need to be able to explain that, but the way they play with words (according to a fairly specific developmental hierarchy) tells us that they are wrapping their mind around this concept. As parents and educators, it is critical to remember that people are born with the innate ability to learn to speak. So, assuming you expose a typically developing child to speech models (e.g adults, older peers), they will learn to talk.

Yet, we are not born with the innate ability to read. Reading is a learned skill that requires teaching at a developmentally appropriate time. Phonological awareness is one step in that climb towards learning to read.

Some important facts about Phonological Awareness: 

- Phonological awareness is a much broader concept than phonemic awareness, which is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes (the smallest sound unites that differentiate meaning)
- Includes the ability to identify and manipulate larger units such as syllables and words
- Includes awareness of other aspects of sound such as rhyming and intonation
- Phonological awareness and early reading skills are highly correlated

Fostering and promoting phonological awareness is done in sequence from the whole components (the word) to part components (the sound). Younger kids should engage in activities with adults that utilize the auditory modality only. So reading books and playing word games while driving will be great. Here are some ideas (listed in in a hierarchy from word to phoneme) to help you promote phonological awareness with your kids:

Word Awareness: as you say each word in  nursery rhyme hold up a finger; point to each word as you read your child's favorite story. This helps internalize that the word you say corresponds to a single unit.

Syllable Awareness: during dinner each member of the family should tap the table or clap their hands for the syllables in their name. For example "Danny" would tap-tap (two syllables), "Emily" would tap-tap-tap (three syllables). Who has the most syllables in their name?

Rhyme Awareness:  There are so many wonderful picture books available that have rhyming words Dr. Seuss's Fox in Socks because it is so simple and get to the rhyming quickly. Another is The Goodnight Train. Just remember that they don’t need identify the words in print, they just need to hear them.

Initial Consonant Awareness: Pick a favorite doll or stuffed animal. Right now, Teddy only likes carrots. Go around the house to hunt for other things teddy might like that start with the /k/ sound (cake, cookies...)

Alliteration: "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." That's hard to say! Make up other silly sentences with friends names with all words that start with the same letter. "Daddy digs a dog a day!"

Onset/Rime Awareness: The onset of a word is the first consonant sound (or consonant blend) in a word (e.g. in the word "stick" /st/ is the onset). The rime of a word are the vowel and consonant sounds following the initial consonant sound ( e.g. in the word "top" /op/ is the rime). Play a rousing round of "I Say, You Say." Take turns calling out a 1 syllable word such as "pat." Then one person will say the onset: /p/ and the other will sat the rime: /at/. Make sure to switch roles  so everyone gets a chance to say the onset or rhyme.

Phonemic Awareness (Segmenting, blending, manipulation): This is the skill we all think about when we think about reading (and later spelling) abilities.

Segmenting means breaking up a word into its component phonemes (or sounds). Say the word "dog" and have your child segment the sounds (not the letters!). They should make the sounds /d/ /o/ /g/. Another helpful way to visualize this concept for kids is to use sound boxes. Take a look at  Another helpful activity is the use of sound cups. Take 3 or 4 plastic cups, pom-poms (or other small items), paper and marker. Place the pom-poms in front of each cup.  Say a word such as "cat". Your child can put the pom-pom in the cup as they segment the word into phonemes. So for "cat" they would put three pom-poms in three cups as they say /c/ /a/ and /t/.

Blending is the opposite of segmenting. Play a guessing game and say the individual phonemes. Ask your child to blend them into the word. If you say /m/ /i/ /t/, your child should guess "mit".

Manipulation is tricky. Pick a song and substitute various sounds. For example, sing to the tune of  "Zippity Do Da":

Bippity boo ba

Bippity bay.

My Oh my what a wonderful day!

Plenty of sunshine comin' my way.

Bippity boo ba

Bippity bay!

Opportunities to encourage phonological awareness are all around. What are your favorite activities or books?

For more information on phonological awareness, take a look at a great resource on reading called Reading Rockets. Here is an abridged version of their chart on the ages at which 80-90 percent of typical students have achieved a phonological skill:

Age 4: Rote imitation and enjoyment of rhyme and alliteration
Age 5: Clapping, counting syllables
Age 5½: Producing a rhyme; Matching initial sounds; isolating an initial sound
Age 6: Blending of two and three phonemes
Age 6½: Phoneme segmentation of words that have up to three or four phonemes (e.g. b-a-t)


Michelle Lachman
Schedule your free consultation today: 1.408.365.4423 / mlachman.speech@gmail.com

Parent Question: My four year old has a lisp. Help!

Parents have a lot of questions when it comes to speech and language development and don't always have a reliable place to get an answer. On this blog, I'll post some of the most common questions I get and ideas on what to do. Send me your questions to mlachman.speech@gmail.com.

Q: I have a four year old boy who's name is Sam. When he says his name or any other word with an 's' in it, he makes the 's' sound as a 'th' sound. So if people ask him his name he says "Tham." I think my son has a lisp. Help!

A: I know lots of parents who have brought up this very concern. In fact, both of my kids did the same thing. My son even stopped at age 5 and then started back up again about six months later.

The type of lisp this parent is describing is called a "frontal lisp" (or interdental lisp). That's when a person has difficulty producing the 's' or 'z' sound because of their tongue placement. The tongue may stick out between the teeth a bit which results in a sound distortion.

In children Sam's age a frontal lisp is considered developmental and speech language therapists may not suggest therapy. Developmental norm data suggests that a frontal lisp may even occur until age 7 or 8. What is important to remember is that a young child with a frontal lisp will not have any difficulty communicating and should not become frustrated. In Sam's case, his parent may not choose to wait until 7 or 8 if the lisp does not eliminate on its own. But only because Sam's name is "Sam" and the sound distortion might eventually become noticeable (and not as cute) to adults and peers.

If Sam still does not outgrow his lisp around age 5 or 6 therapy may be recommended. Here is what I might suggest:

- Therapy once a week (for 1 month) to teach proper placement and train parents in beneficial activities at home for carryover
- 1 therapy session per month for the next 2-3 months to make sure proper placement has carried over and the child is able to make the proper sound independently
- Teach the child to bite down, and blow air through his teeth with a gentle smile
- Teach the child to keep their snake (tongue) in its house (mouth)
- Encourage parents to make activities targeting the sound fun
- Suggest books that focus on the 's' sound like Sid and Sam by Nola Buck and Silly Sally by Audry Wood
- Encourage confident communication

Of note: A lateral lisp may sound similar but occurs when air escapes over the sides of the tongue (not the front of the tongue like a "frontal" lisp). A lateral lisp can sound "wet" and "slushy" due to saliva. This type of lisp is not developmental. Parents should consult with a speech language therapist if their child sound like they have a lateral lisp. Therapy could begin as early as 4 years of age.

Michelle Lachman
Schedule your free consultation today: 1.408.365.4423 / mlachman.speech@gmail.com

Social Learning, a Cat and an Emperor

The Sunnyvale Theater has two great plays for children coming up.

Puss in Boots, that famous fairy tale about a clever cat who uses trickery to get his master power, wealth and  the princess at the end being performed at the Sunnyvale Community Center one last time on Feb 07, 2015 at 11:00 AM.

The Emperor's New Clothes is being performed March 7, 2015 April 4, 2015 at 11:00 AM. This story reveals the foolishness of a vain Emperor who wears fake clothes made of cloth  so special he cannot see it! He is exposed when a child yells out that the Emperor has no clothes.

The great thing about both of these plays is that they allow to think about what others are thinking and how these thoughts differ from our own. Puss the clever cat uses lies to create a new identity for his master - from clothes to castle. And while no parent wants to encourage their child to lie, the concept that we use language to manipulate other people is developmentally appropriate. Just take a look what kids can do:

Age 3-4: begins using language for fantasies, jokes, teasing.
Age 4-5: develops basic understanding of Theory of Mind*
School Age: demonstrates increased understanding of Theory of Mind (e.g., read body language, facial expressions, taking the perspective of another and modifying language use accordingly
(Source: ASHA Social Communication Benchmarks)

*Theory of Mind is the ability to understand that one's mental and emotional state is unique from others'. People with Autism Spectrum Disorder or other social/pragmatic difficulties tend to lack Theory of Mind. Here's a video that shows some Theory of Mind in action during play.

Trickery and lying are a combination of understanding your own thoughts, the thoughts of others and using language to manipulate actions or outcomes. The ability to understand our own thoughts as separate from others' is a skill taught by speech language pathologists to kids with social learning or pragmatic difficulties.

So how do we teach kids about people's different thoughts and actions? This isn't easy, since the cues we pick up on - facial expression, body language, or tone of voice - are things most people intuit. Kids with social communication difficulties (difficulty with Theory of Mind or perspective taking) need to learn these skills explicitly. 

The Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems are an excellent resource and starting point for talking about perspective (Find "I Broke My Trunk" here). The books have a clear story, are simply drawn and use a great tool for perspective talking: thinking and talking bubbles! Here are some suggestions while talking about the plays, watching friends on the playground or reading the Elephant and Piggie books:

- Teach kids about thinking and talking bubbles. What is thinking versus talking? How do these bubbles look different?
- Point out how you know what Piggie or Elephant is feeling. Is it a facial expression? What does it mean when Piggie leans towards Elephant with his hands to his mouth?
- Once Elephant told Piggie he broke his trunk, what might Piggie say next in his talking bubble?
- What might Piggie do next? Make a smart guess together.
- Does Elephant know what Piggie will do next? How and why?

These are just some of the questions I would ask kids when addressing perspective thinking. The idea is that we don't always know what other people are thinking but we do have clues from what we see (facial expressions), what we hear (tone of voice), and what we think they want (motivations and goals).

Enjoy the show.
Michelle Lachman
Schedule your free consultation today: 1.408.365.4423 / mlachman.speech@gmail.com

Have You Seen What's on View at the San Jose Museum of Art?

Sh! No talking at the museum. People are looking at the art.

OK, so I wouldn't go to the museum with my kids if we were practicing our inside vs. our outside voice. But I would go see what's on view at the San Jose Museum of Art where are short stroll let's me target deductive reasoning and storytelling.

So what's on view? The first exhibit called Momentum: An Experiment in the Unexpected is open until February 22, 2015, so go see it soon.

While the artists explore the ideas of movement and the passage of time, kids can explore Slip by Tony Oursler. It's green and sort of smiles at them. Who wouldn't have something to say?

There's some more time to go see the Koret Family Gallery: Maker Space, on view until January 2016.  This exhibit is really inspirational and get you thinking about how art can be made out of so many materials. The artists upcycle objects thrown away to make art. Sounds like what my kids do with milk boxes in kindergarten. Just take a look at Three More Flags by Ray Beldner, made out of dollar bills and thread.

So what's there to talk about? Well other than what we all might first notice about art: color, shape, or materials, parents can engage their kids in some other activities that will promote concepts I target in language therapy such as deductive reasoning and storytelling.

Deductive reasoning is the process of reasoning from one or more statements to reach a logical conclusion. For example, all oranges are fruits, all fruits grow on trees. Therefore, all oranges grow on trees. Deductive reasoning helps us understand the world around us.

So, you know how to play I Spy. While exploring the Maker Space, give your kids some clues:

I'm thinking of something hanging on the wall (...so not a sculpture)

It's made of something we pay with (...so money)

See how many clues you need to give? Can your kids give you clues?

Want a challenge for kids who are a bit older? Watch the Abbot & Costello classic Who's on First, to laugh and use deductive reasoning (and listening skills) to figure out who's on first!

At the Momentum exhibit, get your kids to create a story. Speech language therapists are always targeting story elements, especially when providing services to kids in school. Story elements include title, character, setting and order of events. You can first model making up a story:

The title of my story is Mrs. S slips to Sacramento.

Once there was a slippery Mrs. S who loved to slip away from her house to explore...

Without being too explicit, these two sentences model coming up with a title, a main character, a setting, and an initiating event (she likes to slip away to explore). See what your kids can come up with and use the art at the museum as a starting point.

Have fun.
Michelle Lachman
Schedule your free consultation today: 1.408.365.4423 / mlachman.speech@gmail.com