What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)?
A personal experience of CAS, a neurological speech disorder affecting a child’s ability to correctly produce syllables and words. Early signs to help you detect.
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Thanksgiving Tips
Let’s be honest, Thanksgiving with or without children can be a struggle. Thanksgiving is a time when you get together with a lot of people that you may not see frequently, and you may not truly enjoy all their company. We are expected to get dressed up, eat “Thanksgiving foods,” be on our best behavior…
Tips and Tricks for Trick-or-Treating
Every year, most children and adults joyfully anticipate Halloween and trick-or-treating. Choosing a costume, getting dressed up, and showing off your sense of humor and creativity is fun no matter how old you are. This annual event, however, can be nerve-racking for some. Parents may be stressed about whether their child will be able to say,…
What is Toe Walking ?
What is Toe Walking and is it bad for you? Walking on the toes or the balls of the feet, also known as toe walking, is fairly common in children who are just beginning to walk. Most children outgrow it, but sometimes it can result from certain conditions, including cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and autism…
What is body Awareness?
Body awareness is the internal understanding of where the body is in space. It is highly influenced by proprioceptive processing, the sensory information one receives from the movement and force of muscles and joint groups. Body awareness helps one orient his or her body to their surrounding environment and helps them navigate through that environment.…
What is Pediatric Occupational Therapy?
Pediatric occupational therapy focuses on helping children develop the skills they need to grow into functional and independent individuals.
After School Speech & Language Development Activities for Kids
Generalizing new language skills is an essential part of speech therapy success that we can’t achieve without the support of parents and loved ones. In this blog, we are going to walk through five simple after school speech and language development activities for kids and families to help your child apply their new speech skills…
Preparing Babies & Toddlers for Speech
As a parent, you may be wondering if there are things you can do to help your infant or toddler with their speech development. You might be surprised to hear this, but you’re probably already doing a lot to help your child. In this blog, we’ll talk about some simple ways you can help your…
Should I Use Baby Sign Language?
Using baby sign language is a great way to help young children communicate their wants and needs before they are able to say them verbally.
A Strategy to Support Speech and Language Development
Many parents ask, what they can do to help their children start talking? One of the best thing you can do as a parent to facilitate speech and language skills in your child is give them opportunities to communicate with you. Withholding increases the amount of communication opportunities your child has each day. Plenty of…
Talking Tip: Exaggerate How Your Mouth Moves
“ooo-ahh” “wawa” “mama” “ball” “woof” – Your mouth moves differently to say all of these sounds and words. Start paying attention to the way your mouth moves to make certain sounds. Then, try working on words with your little one, during play or daily routines, while exaggerating how your mouth moves to make the sounds…
The Best Toys Are the Toys That Do Nothing
The Best Toys Are the Toys That Do Nothing: Choose Open-Ended Toys A study by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) compared traditional toys to electronic toys. The report concludes that traditional toys result in better child-caregiver interactions. These interactions provide multiple communication-learning opportunities. Children learn by doing. Open-ended toys do not have batteries…
Reading Strategies To Use With Babies
1. Read Slowly Children learn more from books when they are read slowly. It will sound very weird to you to read so slowly, but trust me: it will help! You can also add longer pauses at the end of each sentence. 2. Point While Naming Pictures Talk about pictures. Point to them as…
When should I get rid of my child’s pacifier?
What does a pacifier have to do with Speech Pathology? The answer is EVERYTHING. Speech therapists treat articulation and feeding disorders. Prolonged pacifier use can cause speech sound disorders and a speech delay! They can also cause a reverse swallow and a tongue thrust. A tongue thrust is when the tongue protrudes between the front…
Singing Encourages Speech Development
Does your child enjoy singing? We do too! At Crossroads Speech Therapy we cater to your childs interests to make sessions fun, and engaging to meet their language goals. Your child will look forward to their sessions! Contact Us Also check out these articles: Preparing Babies & Toddlers for Speech How To Use Feeding Time…
Offering Choices Supports Speech and Language Development
Offering choices is an alternative to yes-no questions. Offering choices allows your child to answer with a wider range of responses, gives your child some control, and offers more opportunities for communication. Offering choices can let child know that language is a powerful tool that can be used to control their environment. Giving your child…
Choose Your Words Wisely When Discipling & Modifying Behavior
The way we talk to kids is important, as moms and as speech therapists. If we want our children to act a certain way or complete a task the words we use matter. Tell and Don’t Ask: In high school and college, I worked as a pediatric dental assistant. Dr. Joe taught me, never…
Tips to Maximize Reading Time with your Children
Hi there! I’m Katie Dimond, mom of 2 boys, speech pathologist, and founder/director of Crossroads Speech Therapy. I am a huge advocate of reading. My mom and dad always read to me as I was growing up and it instilled a love for reading. Reading sparks the imagination and it inspires creativity, increases vocabulary, and…
Speech therapy for children struggling academically in school
If your child is falling behind or struggling academically, a Speech Therapy referral probably isn’t on the list of things you think would help. But the truth is, Speech Pathologists are uniquely qualified to target some of the root causes for academic challenges. When this is first presented to parents, it may seem strange and…
How To Use Feeding Time To Further Speech Development
As a Speech Pathologist, I teach parents to try and incorporate at least 45-minutes of play-time into their daily routine with their child to facilitate language learning. While this can happen in chunks of time throughout the day, there has been a recent study showing that feedings/meal times are a great time to use language…
Is TV OK for my child?
“How much TV is OK?”… “What shows do you recommend?” I get these questions from parents ALL the time. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the recommendation is to prioritize creative, unplugged playtime for infants and toddlers. I think if you can do this: Great! But, let’s be real. Sometimes parents need a break…