Educational Series-Babies:101 (Speech)

Welcome to our 6 part Educational Series!  Our therapists have put together some great information on a range of topics, from developmental milestones for babies and toddlers, to picky eaters and "sensory seekers".
Please follow us on Instagram (@therapeuticbeginnings) for the live presentation;  More details notes and suggestions will be found in these blog posts. 
The information below is around "What can I do?" at home, from a speech approach. 
“What can I do at home?”
(Given in a loose order of development)  

• Be aware and alert to possible hearing difficulties.  Chronic ear infections can cause short-term hearing deficits, which will reduce the amount of speech your baby can process. Get hearing screenings regularly and follow-up with an audiologist if concerns arise.  
• Help them see your beautiful face! It’s great for the baby to see how your face and mouth is moving to create sounds. You can do this by holding things of interest near your face while you are talking about them, giving choices with the choices on either side of your face, or making gestures with your hands near your face. 
• Baby talk is out, infant directed speech is in.  Baby talk is when you speak with child-like, cutesy speech sound errors. An example of this is “awe, widdle baby want a boddo wif miwk.” Though it feels cute and playful, we don’t want to model speech we don’t want to see.  Infant directed speech is when you speech with higher pitch, exaggerated tone and intonation forming simple sentences focused on core words. This may sound clinical, but you probably do this without thinking sometimes. For examples “WOW, the bear is BIIIGGGG” 
  
  
• ​Be dramatic!  Let the sound effects, animal sounds, babbles, and exclamations (like “uh-oh” “wow”) be part of your vocabulary around your baby!  Tell stories, act out events, sing songs. Whatever ways you can make language fun will be beneficial.  
• Babble back and copy-cat. When your baby makes noise, make noise back! Even copying of a sneeze or cough can show your baby that making sounds can cause/change things happening in their environment.  This carries over for gestures and facial expressions too. For example: if your baby puts something yucky in their mouth and they look disgusted, make an exaggerated grossed-out face and add some speech “ew yuck, I didn’t like that! That was yucky!” 
• Talk to your child a lot and often. During focused time, you can talk about things the baby is looking at using simple speech such as “Bear! Green bear. Bear is green. Wow green bear.”  
• Less time available for focused play? NO PROBLEM! You can be talking while doing anything. Talk about what you’re cooking, what you see while you are driving, or even the latest developments in your favorite TV show. This may look like you folding a pair of pants and saying “pants, blue pants, pants are long, pants.” What matters is your baby is getting plenty of models of speech sounds and words.  

• Practice sounds out loud to them. Practicing sounds that go with words as you model speech. This could look like “pop! P-p-p pop b-b-b bubble!” during bath time.   Even baby brains can tell the difference between a screen and a person. ​Developing brains have evolved specifically to learn from their caregivers’ faces and voices in a way that simply can’t be replaced or even supplemented with a screen. MRI imaging has proven that brains “tune in” significantly more when attending to a person than a screen.   
• We all need our breaks occasionally, but unfortunately screen time at an early age has negative effects on speech and language development.  

Here are the recommendations 

• 0-18 months: no screen time  

• 18-24 months: very limited screen time with “co-watching” where parent is watching with them and talking about what is happening on screen.  

• 2-5 years: Maximum of one hour a day with co-watching.  

• Once their talking, help them expand. This is called recasting. For instance, if they say “car” you could say “car, big car! The big car!” This takes something they already know and shows them how it can expand.  
• Keep it in the zone!  The Zone of Proximal Development is a concept therapist look too often. It refers to the skills the child currently has and the skills they could have with support. Children learn best when they are challenged just a little beyond their ability.  
• What does that mean for you? Just keep this concept in mind. Ask yourself “what are they doing now? What would be a small step above that?”  Example: your child can say "bubbles" and "more bubbles" during bath time. A step above that would be adding another known word, like “more bubbles please” or it could mean adding a descriptive word, like “big bubbles.” What would be outside of this zone would be expecting “I want big bubbles again please” if the child currently only has “more bubbles.”  
• Most important, keep it fun!! Become comfortable modeling speech without expectation of repetition. Avoid requiring your child to repeat something before they can get what they are asking for. We want to prevent a power struggles surrounding communication.  
• These suggestions are equally encouraged with adjustments for sign language. Speak in whatever language you are most comfortable with. Multiple languages in the house do not delay speech.  
• Feel free to pick and choose the strategies that work best for your comfort level, schedule, and family culture.   
  
  Next up: Preschool Pals!  Ages 3-5....STAY TUNED!!!