This is third in a series of how to help your child understand what you are saying to him/her. 

Talking Tips for Parents:

1. Use a slower speech rate.  Even a small changes in your speech rate can improve your child's understanding of language.

2.  Use shorter remarks.  Pretend you're sending a telegram.  It includes only the most important content words.  Use phrases and sentences just beyond your child's language level.  For example, a child who says single words should be given two-word phrases.  For a child who is using two words at a time, three-or four-word phrases would be apporopriate.  Some examples are: "Do you want juice?" becomes "Want juice?" "That big horse is over there" becomes "See the big horse."
"Do you want the cookie or the cracker?" becomes "Want cookie? Want cracker?"  "First you'll take your bath and then I will read you a story" becomes "Your bath is first.  Then your story." 

3.  Use simple sentences.  Sentences that contain a bsic subject+verb+object or adjective are the easiest.  For example:  Tommy + drank + milk.  Dog + is + big.  He+ ran + home.  As your child's language develops, include more information in your remarks, e.g. Tommy drank all the milk.  The dog is big and brown.  He ran quickly home for dinner. 

4.  Use repetition.  When you repeat words, phrases, and sentences, your child has a better chance to learn and understand.  Expand on your child's utterances. 
     Child:  Doll 
     Parent:  Sue's doll.
     Parent:  Your doll is pretty.
     Child:  I like your doll.
New vocabulary was added each time and different sentence structures were modeled, but the child's message was kept and repeated.

5.  Exaggerate important words with your voice.  Your child will pay more attention to words that you stress when you talk.  Put more stress on words you want your child to hear and remember. For example: "Big dog."  "Juice all gone."  "You're a good boy."

6.  Use gestures when you speak.  Gestures help your child understand the meaning of your spoken message.  Include natural gestures, i.e. facial gestures (excited, happy, sad, upset, interested), hand gestures (Come here. Give to me. I want. You want. Stop. Go. etc.), body gestures (arms out to indicate a hug, folded arms to indicate anger).

If you have any questions about the above information, please comment and I will reply.

An article in the Advance for Speech-Language Pathologists & Audiologists (sEPTEMBER 19, 2011) described a new way to think about development.  Early motor experiences can shape infants' preferences for objects and faces, according to a new study.  The findings demonstrate that providing infants with "sticky mittens" to manipulate toys increases their interest in faces, suggesting advanced social development. 

When 3-month-olds were given mittens affixed with strips of Velcro, known as "sticky mittens", a brief swipe of their arm made toys covered in Velcro stick, as if they had successfully grasped the object.  Parents demonstrated this by attaching a toy to the mitten.  The toy was removed and the infant was encouraged to reach independently for the toy again.  When another group of infants were fitted with aesthetically similar mittens and toys that did not have Velcro, they were only passive observers, as parents provided stimulation by moving a toy and touching it to the inside of the infants' palms.

After two weeks of daily training, the active group showed more interest in faces than objects, while the passive group showed no preference.  Infants in the active group focused on faces first, suggesting strenghtening of a spontaneous preference.  The more reaching attempts infants made, the stronger their tendency to look at faces.  Motor experiences seem to drive social development.
A key question researchers hope to answer next is whether these early changes will translate into future gains for these children.  This new research could point in a new direction for research on social development in children.

Opininion by Pam Hass, Speech-Language Pathologist.  Kids begin pointing to indicate what they want or need or for joint attention to communicate between 9-12 months of age.  If this process can be boosted through training with the use of more motor experiences at a younger age, kids, who may have social delays or social disabilities, may benefit from this early training.  The research needs to continue in order for this to become evidence-based practice.  

Reference
Libertus ,K., Needham, A. (2011) Reaching experience increases face preference in 3-month-old-infants, Developmental Science, online, Sept. 9.

Reference: Advance for Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists  Sept. 19, 2011

Stuttering affects 3 million Americans and four times as many men as women.  Approximately 5 percent of young children go through a period of stuttering that lasts six months or more.  The majority recover by late childhood, leaving only about 1 percent with a long-term stutter.

Adolescent and adult stutterers have a different awareness of the disorder as a result of a lifetime of disfluency.  Of particular interest to Courtney Byrd, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, College of Communication, at the University of Texas in Austin, is seeing if the unique behaviors she has identified in young children at the onset of stuttering persist into adulthood.

Learning how stutterers select and organize the sounds they use to make words helps researchers identify the obstacles that result in stuttering and develop therapies to overcome them.  In the Developmental Stuttering Lab, which she established at the college five years ago, Dr. Byrd and her team of graduate and undergraduate students evaluate how typically developing presechoolers acquire language and learn how to put sounds together fluently.  These evaluations range from observing parents laying and talking with their children, to analyzing characteristics of disfluent speech, to measuring speech fluency as a child describes a picture, to asking children to identify words based on partial sounds.  The data are used to create benchmarks against which to compare children who stutter and pinpoint the breakdown in fluency.

Children who stutter take longer to select sounds because they are not efficiently organized, which means stuttering is not strictly motoric, or a speech behavior, but there is a linguistic component as well, Dr. Byrd's research suggests.

Up until about age 2-and-a-half, she said, children's speech consists of a constellation of unrelated but familiar words, such a mommy, daddy, baby, milk,  and book.  During a vocabulary growth spurt by age 3, they start to organize language into global syllable shapes, or neighborhoods, of words that differ by only one individual sound segment, such as back, bath, bag, bad, and bat.

"This global syllable shape selection strategy enables 3-year-olds to efficiently organize and access their limited vocabulary," said Dr. Byrd.  "However, by age 5 an expanded vocabulary compounded by faster utterances and longer, more complex phrases makes it inefficient for typically developing children to rely on this strategy.  In fact, it inhibits their ability to produce speech fluently."

In contrast to typically developing children and adults, she said, "'my research has shown both children and adults who stutter continue to rely on the global syllable shape organization system, which is inefficient and slows their ability to access the individual sound segments that represent the words they're trying to say.  The outcome is what we perceive as stuttered speech."

She hopes her research will lead to the identification of key etiological factors that could be used to transform treatment.  "But stuttering is a complex disorder," she said.  "It waxes and wanes, and its origins are unclear."

"While we work with clients to improve their fluency through speech therapy, we also give them practical coping mechanisms.  For example, the simple act of self-disclosure can ease the burden and make the stutterer and others feel comfortable," Dr. Byrd stated.

Here are several ways Diann D. Grimm, M.A. CCC. Ed.S. recommends speaking with your child to facilitate more language and communication from your child.   I have provided a summary of each strategy.

1) Talk about the here and now.  Talk about objects, people, and events that can be seen, heard, and touched.  Say "I put the ball in the box" while doing the action.  Name objects that the child can see.  " A dog.  I see a dog.  Look at the dog".  Talk about people around you, e.g. "There's a police officer.  She helps us."

2) Talk about what is important and interesting to your child.  If a child is playing with blocks on the floor, you can say, "Those are big blocks.  This one is red."  Common objects such as pots and pans, boxes, and rocks can be interesting to them.

3) Talk out loud about what you are doing.  Us simple phrases and sentences to describe what you are doing, seeing, and thinking.  For  example, while making a cake: "I'm putting in the eggs.  Now I"m mixing the batter.  Going around and around.  It needs more flour.  I'll put in a little more.

4) At times, talk for your child.  By doing this, you give your child words and sentences to remember for future use.  If your child is playing, you might say:  " That's a big car.  Make it go.  It goes so fast.  There's a little car.  It can go too."  It is also important to put your  child's feelings into words.  For example, " I can see that  you are angry.  Tommy broke your truck.   We can fix it.

5)  Expand your child's remarks.  If your child says "juice".  You can say "You want juice."  If your child says, "doggie  run", you can say " The dog runs fast".  The use of expansion is a non-threatening way to model good language for your child.

6) Add a little more information to your child's remark.  Add a new idea.  If your child says, "Truck here", you can say "Yes, there's a big red truck." 

7) Don't ask your child to repeat what you say.  You only need to provide good language models.  Your child will learn to say things you do-without pressure and at the child's own pace.

8) Praise your child's language attempts.  Keep talking and keep learning fun!

St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1/31/12 

Washington University study reports that positive reinforcement may increase brain size. by Blythe Bernhard bbernhard@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8129

If your child forgets his lunch or struggles with school work, a little more loving might turn things around. 

Supportive mothers who practice positive reinforcement seem to help their children's brains grow, according to new research from Washington University.

Brain scans show that school-age children of nurturing mothers have a 10 percent larger hippocampus-the region of the brain that plays a role in memory, learning and stress response-compared to the brains of children whose mothers were deemed less supportive.

The take-home message for working and stay-at-home parents is to praise children more than you scold them, the researchers said. 

"Parents might feel guilty because they're working, and we work a lot as well," said Dr. Kelly Botteron, a professor of child psychiatry and co-author of the study. "But when you're home in the evening and you're trying to rush through homework and trying to get dinner ready, if you remember to say a a couple nice, really positive things... I think a lot of parents could do that and it's a practical thing that has very little risk to it."

It's long been known that orphans and other neglected children who are placed in loving homes can improve their behavior and health.  And while a link between nurturing mothers and their offspring's brain growth has been established in rats, the study is the first to show the same anatomical process in humans.

As part of their ongoing research on childh00d depression, staff members watched how two groups of 92 children ages 3-5 interacted with their caregivers (usually mothers) during a stressful task.  One group of children had symptoms of depression and the others were assigned to a control group.

For the task, the mothers were told to fill out a questionnaire.  The child was given a wrapped present but told not to open it right away.  The  eight-minute "waiting task," as it's known, has been used by researchers as a reliable indicator of parental nurturing skills.  The task is thought to simulate situations at home, such as a parent distracted by cooking dinner while the child needs to focus on homework.

Researchers who reviewed the taped interactions rated the mother's responses to their children's behavior.  Mothers received points each time they praised the child's patience or offered encouragement to not open the gift.

The researchers acknowledged they're not getting a complete picture of family life, especially if Mom was having a bad day.  But they are confident that the results of the MRI brain scans on the kids, performed four years after the "waiting task," indicate that children who have more supportive mothers also have bigger brains.

Children with less supportive mothers had a hippocampus volume that was 9.2 percent smaller than the children of more nurturing mothers.  In children with depression, the effects of nurturing were not as positive, and the researchers think the disease process has a greater impact on brain development.

The researchers plan to run second and third MRI brain scans on the children, who are now preteens, to watch for brain development over time.

Although the study wasn't designed to look at fathers, foster parents or grandparents, the researchers said the positive effects of nurturing can come from any caregivers, which can be reasonably stretched to include teachers.

"If you know your child is in a difficult situation, to reinforce to them that you know it's a hard situation but they're doing such a great job, that's the kind of parenting we would try to encourage," Botteron said.

The researchers were careful to point out they're not opposed to disciplining children or giving them boundaries.

"You should be supportive and nurturing, which is not the same as spoiling, and not the same as smothering," said the study's lead author Dr. Joan Luby, a professor of child psychiatry.

One local mom said it was exciting to hear that something she already believes in could have an effect on her children's intellectual, and not just emotional, development.

"For a nurturing parent it's both beautiful and frightening because many of us who spend a lot of nights wondering whether we're doing everything we possibly can for our children, this falls into the category of one more thing to worry about," said Danielle Smith of O'Fallon, MO, who has two young children and writes the blog extrordinary-mommy.com. "It sounds like a bonus to me, but I have to embrace the idea that what I'm doing is enough."

Comment from Pam Hass, Speech Language Pathologist:  As we as caregivers and teachers of our children, in addition to being nurturing and supportive of our children, we also need to include our children in day to day conversations and make reading to our children a daily event.  Talking with  our children, listening  and responding to our children while they play or while we do our daily chores will help develop children's language skills.  Reading to our children and talking with them about the story is very important in developing their language and cognitive skills.  

In my next blog, I will begin to list some language activities that families can do to stimulate both the understanding and expression of language.

Reference:  Advance for Speech Pathologists and Audiologists  12/14/11

Sleep deprivation impacts academics and safety.


From memory to judgment, attention span, emotional stability and even immunity, sleep deprivation negatively affects school-age children," reports Kristin Avis, MD, a sleep specialist and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UA.  Of children under age 18, 60 percent polled by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) complained of being tired during the day, and 15 percent reported falling asleep at school.

The NSF has guidelines for how much sleep children of various ages require.  Three-five year-olds need 11 to 13 hours per night, while 5-to 12-year olds need 10-11 hours.

"As for adolescents, it's a common myth that they need less sleep and can handle only seven or eight hours," said Dr. Avis.  "They actually need nine hours of sleep.  That's typically the most sleep-deprived population in school.

A student can make up for the lack of one good night's sleep, but going an entire school week without sufficient rest can be detrimental, she noted.  "You can sleep until noon on Saturday and feel caught up, but then you will go to bed later that night, sleep in on Sunday, and then repeat the cycle into the new school week."

Children need a suitable amount of sleep every night.  Their bedrooms should be as tranquil as possible, which means removing noise-makers.

"On average, there are three to four electronic gadgets in a kid's room," Dr. Avis reported.  "It's been shown that even sleeping with a television on deprives them of 20 minutes of sleep per night, which may not sound like a lot but adds up over a week's time.

'Cell phones are often used as an alarm clock, but for about $5 you  can invest in a real alarm clock so the phone can be turned off," added Stephanie Wallace, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at UAB.

Dr. Avis is exploring further what a bad night's rest can do to a child.  She and David Schwebel, PhD, professor of psychology and director of the Youth Safety Lab at UAB, are studying sleep deprivation and pedestrian injury and general safety among children.

by Becca Jarzynski, MS, CCC-SLP

Reference: www.pediastaff.com/blog/guest-blog-everyday-language-activities
Posted on December 28, 2011

'This article was posted as a guest blog on www.pediastaff.com and written for parents. 

I included this post in my blog because I think it is important for Moms to realize they cannot do it all, but incorporating language stimulation in the midst of everyday life can be a nice balance. -Pam Hass, M.A. CCC-SLP 

In her post, Ellen explains that her son Max gets therapy sessions throughout his week but that "the sessions are only 45 minutes to an hour long and it's the ways we put those therapy techniques into practice that matter most."  She goes on to describe how attempting to accomplish therapy carryover at home used to be overwhelming and somewhat guilt-provoking, especially when therapists would leave long lists of tasks to be accomplished.  Then, Ellen reflects on how she has learned to do only what she can and let the rest go (yah!) and, most importantly, how she has learned to integrate the things Max needs into fun family activities that they were doing anyway.  Yes, I thought when I read her post. Yes.  That's exactly what we are trying to encourage families to do when we work with them and their children as early intervention professionals.

With that in mind, I took my two-year old daughter grocery shopping.  I'm learning that much of life is to be found in the joy of daily activities, so I decided to slow the activity down-to enjoy it and her along the way.  As I did, I realized how much skill development was occurring right in the context of this simple and potentially mundane daily routine.

1) Two-year olds are developing and understanding simple concepts, so we wove them into our trip.  She put things "in" the cart and "under" it as well.  The cat litter was heavy (I let her drag it to the cart so she could experience what heavy meant) and the chips were light (as she threw them up and over the edge of the cart).  The bread was soft (and a bit squished after we were done) and the cans were hard.  The apples were big and the grapes were small.  I paired actions with words as we compared and contrasted all these things, and by the end of the trip, she was starting to use some of the words on her own to describe what she was doing or what she felt.  Even better, she had a blast helping gather the food, throwing things into the cart, and just generally being involved in the experience.

2) Toddlers this age are also just starting to use simple grammar elements such as: plural -s (cans), possessive -s (daddy's), and -ing (pushing).  I used expansion and indirect correction to model her sentences back to her, a bit more correctly.  If she said, "two apple," as we counted them and put them in the bag, I said "Yep, two apples!"  When she commented that she was holding, "daddy plum", I responded with, "These are daddy's plums!"  And when she said "I push!"
while pushing the cart down the aisle (and almost into the pickles), I replied that "Yes, you're pushing!"

3)  Two-year olds are also merging into the world of pretend play and we wove this into our trip as well.  At one point, a jar of olives was a microphone and we were rock stars.  People may have thought us a bit odd, but we were certainly having fun.

The beautiful part of all of this is that it made the activity joyful for both of us.  She was learning and I was shopping, but most of all, we were just being mother and daughter, loving up life.

I must note, of course, that this won't work for everyone, in every activity.  My daughter loves grocery shopping.  My son?  Hated it.  With him, getting through grocery shopping was an exercise in survival; my sole focus was on keeping him contained long enough that we could get the groceries we needed.  It wouldn't have worked to slow it down, even if I had tried to engage him more.  It's just how he was as a toddler, full of boundless energy that was exceedingly hard to corral.  When he was little, it was much easier to weave learning into football than into grocery shopping.  The activity has to fit the child, not the other way around.

And, there is also the danger of believing that every single activity throught the day has to be a learning experience.  It doesn't.  Sometimes grocery shopping just needs to be grocery shopping, and that needs to be okay.  But when it doesn't, when time can slow down just a bit, when children can learn in the context of an activity, that is truly a delight for everyone involved, that's the sweet spot for sure.

Featured columnist: Becca Jarzynski, MS, CCC-SLP

A New Way to Think About Developement

Reference: Advance for Speech Language Pathologists and Audiologists, (Sept.19, 2011)

Early motor experiences can shape infants' preferences for objects and faces, according to a new study.  The findings demonstrate that providing infants with "sticky mittens" to manipulate toys increases their interest in faces, suggesting advanced social development.

The study, conducted by Kennedy Krieger Institute, in Baltimore, MD, and Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, TN, supports a growing body of evidence that early motor development and self-produced motor experiences contribute to infants' understanding of the social world around them.  Conversely, this implies that delayed or impaired motor skills, such as in autism, could negatively impact social interactions and development. 

The results provide "a new way to think about typical and atypical development," said lead author Klaus Libertus, Phd, of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at Kennedy Krieger.  "The mind is not independent from the body, especially during development.  As motor skills advance, other domains follow suit, indicating strong connections between seemingly unrelated domains.  Such connections have exciting implications, suggesting interventions could target the motor domain to foster social development."

Previous research found that infants with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show less interest in faces and social orienting.  While the new study was conducted with typically developing infants, it indicates that infants at risk for ASD or showing signs of abnormal social development may benefit from motor training as early as 3 months of age.

"This means that early motor development is very important and parents should encourage motor experiences and active exploration by their child," said Dr. Libertus.  "Fostering motor development doesn't have to be complex.  Any interactions or games that encourage a child to develop independent motor skills are important."

Researchers divided 36 typically developing 3-month-olds into two groups.  One had active motor experiences, and the other had passive experiences.  Infants in the active group were given mittens affixed with strips of Velcro known as "sticky mittens".  A brief swipe of their arm made toys covered in Velcro stick, as if they had successfully grasped the object.  Parents demonstrated this by attaching a toy to the mitten.  The toy was removed, and the infant was encouraged to reach independently for the toy again.

Infants in the passive group were fitted with aesthetically similar mittens and toys that did not have Velcro.  They were only passive observers, as parents provided stimulation by moving a toy and touching it to the inside of the infant's palms.

After two weeks of daily training, the researchers tracked the infants' eye movements while they watched images of faces and toys flash on a computer screen.   Infants in the passive and active groups were compared with each other and to two control groups of untrained infants comprised of non-reaching 3-month-olds and independently reaching 5-month-olds.

The active group showed more interest in faces than objects, while the passive group showed no preference.  Infants in the active group focused on faces first, suggesting strengthening of a spontaneous preference.  Their social preferences were similar to those of the 5-month-olds, indicating advanced development following training.

Individual differences in the motor activity of all the 3-month-old infants were predictive of their spontaneous orienting to faces.   Regardless of experience, the more reaching attempts infants made, the stronger their tendency to look at faces.  Thus, motor experiences seem to drive social development.

"The most surprising result is a connection between early motor experiences and the emergence of orienting toward faces,"  said Dr. Libertus.  "Logically, one would predict the opposite.  But in the light of seeing actions as serving a social purpose, it makes sense."

A key question researchers hope to answer next is whether these early changes will translate into future gains for these children.

"Our results indicate a new direction for research on social development in infants," said Dr. Libertus.  He and his colleagues will continue to observe the children to see if the social development benefits achieved during the current study are sustained a year later.

Grants from the National Institutes of Health provided support for the study.

Reference
Libertus, K., Needham, A. (2011). Reaching experience increases face preference in 3-month-old infants. Developmental Science, online, Sept. 9.