12 Strategies to Make Your Home a Fluency-Faciliating Environment

The way you speak to your child can have an impact on his or her speech and stuttering behavior. Children who stutter tend to stutter more in stressful speaking situations or when high speaking demands are placed on them. You can decrease the communication demands placed on your child by modifying the way that you speak to them.   “Stuttering results when demands for fluency from the child’s social environment exceed the child’s cognitive, linguistic, motor, or emotional capacities for fluent speech.”- C.  Woodruff Starkweather

Demands can be placed on a child by themselves, or by other listeners. Some examples of demands include:

• Competition for talking time (lack of turn taking)
• Time pressure
• Negative listener reactions
• Excitement/extreme emotion

Capacities are inherited tendencies, strengths/weaknesses, and perceptions which may influence the child’s ability to speak fluently.

Implement the following twelve strategies to create a fluency facilitating environment for your child:

1)  Speak slowly

2) Use a soft voice

3) Pause frequently in conversation

4) Use simple vocabulary and grammar

5) Avoid asking lots of questions, instead, use comments

6) Try not to place too many requirements or expectations on your child, especially during challenging or stressful activities (e.g., potty training, or school work)

7) Be patient, don’t interrupt your child or finish your child’s sentences for him/her, instead establish good turn taking rules

8) Allow time to pass between speaking turns, don’t rush your child

9) Maintain natural eye contact, even during a moment of stuttering

10) Avoid criticizing your child’s speech or using language like “slow down!” or “You’re taking too fast!” Instead, try to focus on the message your child is attempting to deliver

11) Talk openly about stuttering with your child and acknowledge that it can be difficult. You can use language like “sometimes speech is bumpy” or “that was a hard one.”

12) Listening Time: Set aside 15 minutes of time each day that your child can speak to you without time pressure. Your role is to listen to your child.

 

As you know,  pretend play is often a part of a young child’s daily playtime activities. Children learn through play, especially while using their imaginations! They engage in pretend play when they make believe to be someone else or use one object to represent another. Children love to pretend that they are adults with different jobs and tasks to perform—they might dress up like mommy, have a tea party with empty dishes, teach a classroom full of stuffed animals, fly the couch to the moon, or explore the deep, dark closet-cave!

The Hidden Benefits of Pretend Play

 

Pretend play is an important part of childhood. You begin to see pretend play as early as the toddler stage. Young children are learning about themselves, their families, and the world around them when they pretend play. Children are not just discovering creativity when they let their imaginations take over in play—they are learning many important skills. Below are some of the skills children can learn from pretend play:

 

#1 Social-Emotional Skills – When children play together, they practice sharing, turn-taking, and negotiating. In addition, children can better understand and manage their feelings by acting out certain experiences. Pretend play also develops children’s ability to empathize, because they have to consider the way others act, think, and feel.

 

#2 Language and Vocabulary Skills – Children have a variety of experiences to share with each other, and when they talk and play together, they are actually teaching and learning new vocabulary. They are improving their language skills when they have to communicate with one another in a clear and effective manner—for example, when they are explaining a story which requires a logical plot and sequence of events.

 

#3 Problem-Solving Skills – Children can come up with complex plans and solve difficult problems as they play. They have to determine who is going to play which role, where the adventure is going to take place, and what events will happen along the way. If a problem arises during their journey, the children have to rethink the story and negotiate a new situation to reach a final goal that is agreed upon by everyone. Pretend play also develops abstract-thinking skills, which are higher-level thinking skills, for example, using a prop, such as a spoon, as a symbol for something else, such as a microphone.

#4  Disciplinary Skills – Children practice rules when playing. A girl might put her doll in time-out for not cleaning up a mess she made. The girl is more likely to discipline herself and follow the rules given by others having been a disciplinarian herself.

Ideas to Encourage Pretend Play:

 

Make time for make-believe! Creativity takes time to develop, and need time to use their imaginations.

• Show that play is valuable by playing with your children. Children realize that play is important if adults pay attention to them while they are playing and even engage with them in play.
• Appreciate and talk to your children about their play. We • often say, “You are doing a great job working,” but we may never say, “You are doing a great job playing!”
• Create an environment for play. It is important for adults to provide materials t• that children can explore and adapt in play, and it is also great if adults can provide a special “play place” or designated area for the pretend play and all the inspiring props.
• Adults should monitor play, so that when play appears to be “stuck” or  unproductive, they can suggest new character roles, offer new props, or provide new adventures to inspire ideas, such as a trip to the park, aquarium, or museum.

Children get ideas for their play from books, movies, field trips, and everyday life, so if your children are interested in a particular topic, such as animals, take them to the zoo, read them a book about farm animals, or watch a movie about animals—they will be filled with ideas for pretend play! You might see your children reenacting the trip or scenes from the movie with friends. This helps them to better remember the experience, and it reinforces all of their newly learned information.

3 Components of a Fluency Disorder and 3 Ways Yoga can Help.

Many children who stutter have negative feelings and attitudes about communication and suffer from anxiety because of this. Fluency disorders often times have three components, called the “ABCs” of stuttering:

A: Affective

B: Behaviors

C: Cognitive

 

The B, or stuttering behaviors are the only part that others can see, while so much is going on in the mind of a person who stutters (A- affective and C- cognitive), making stuttering a much more complex disorder to evaluate and treat.

Yoga can be very beneficial to children who stutter. Coupled with speech-language therapy, yoga can improve speech fluency in children who stutter, by taking all three components of the disorder into account.

1) Respiration:

Breathing is also a very important to fluent speech. Yoga teaches children to learn to breathe from their bellies (“diaphragmatic breathing”) rather than from their shoulders (“clavicular breathing”). Diaphragmatic breathing allows for more substantial breaths and adequate breath support for fluent speech.

2)Positive Thoughts:

Meditation is a part of yoga, which teaches us self acceptance, the ability to let thoughts go, being in the moment and thinking in new ways.

3)Relaxation:

Yoga promotes overall relaxation, reducing anxiety and tension. Many children who stutter are anxious and tense. In a moment of disfluency, it is much more effective to relax and ease out of it, rather than fighting through it. A good example of this is a “finger trap.” The only way to escape a finger trap is by relaxing and gradually pulling your fingers out of it. The more force you use to pull, the more impossible it is to get out of it.

Yogarilla Cards make adding Yoga to your child’s Speech-Language therapy program easy and fun! There are 55 cards in each Yogarilla set. Each card highlights a different yoga pose, various modifications and additional challenges for each pose. Children love OTis the adorable and friendly gorilla who demonstrates each pose!

7 Risk Factors for Persistent Stuttering and 7 Factors Associated with Spontaneous Recovery

It's amazing to learn that 50-75% of children who exhibit early stuttering will recover without direct intervention. Spontaneous recovery usually occurs within one year of onset. If you have a child who is exhibiting disfluncies, here are the factors that will help you determine if intervention is required:

 

7 Risk Factors for Persistent Stuttering:

 

1) Greater than 60% of child’s speech is dysfluent

2) Dysfluencies persist longer than 12-18 months after their onset.

3) Family History of stuttering: Almost 50% of people who stutter have a family history of stuttering

4) Sensitive temperament or negative reaction to dysfluencies (awareness of stuttering).

5) Concomitant speech and language difficulties or advanced language skills.

6) Late onset (after 3 years of age).

7) Gender: Male

 

7 Factors Associated with Spontaneous Recovery:

 

1) Early onset of dysfluencies (before age 3).

2) Typical speech and language skills

3) Decrease in dysfluencies during the 12 month period following onset.

4)Less than 50% of child’s speech is dysfluent.

5) Gender: Female

6) No family history of stuttering, or relatives who have recovered from stuttering.

7) Outgoing and carefree temperament.

 

SLP Grads: 10 Tips to Take with You

 

I sat in the front row of “Intro to Speech-Pathology.” On day 1, our professor introduced 5 guests who would be joining us to share their experiences and the impact that speech-pathologists had on their lives. Each of the adults were laryngectomy patients. As the guests sat before the class and shared their stories, I was overcome with emotion; tears literally streaming down my cheeks. My heart broke as I felt their pain.

 

Later that day, I came to discover that my emotions were partially due to the sadness that blanketed their faces, but at the same time, my tears were filled with the happiness of knowing that I had discovered my own path; at that moment it became crystal clear to me:

 

 I was going to help others and I was going to do it by becoming a Speech-Language Pathologist.

Graduation season is upon us and I am once again taken back to the thrilling feeling of accomplishing the intense feat of a achieving a Graduate Degree in Speech-Language Pathology. Now, as a practicing SLP, graduation season reminds me just how valuable my graduate degree has been for me, in all aspects of my life. I have been practicing for over 12 years as an ASHA licensed SLP, and I couldn’t be more in love with my career.  

 

Being an SLP continues to quench my desire to help others. It has given me the opportunity to work alongside of other caring and devoted clinicians who continue to inspire me on a daily basis. This field has brought me flexibility in my time, which I am most grateful for in my recent years as a Mom of an infant and a toddler. I continue to be sincerely touched by each of the relationships and friendships that have developed from the families with whom I have worked with in therapy.

 

After 12 years, and all of the changes that life brings, I still feel that the work of an SLP fits like a glove; and that’s a true testament to an amazing field.

So that said, Congratulations, new SLP graduates and welcome to the field! On behalf of our team of Chatterboxes SLP’s, here’s our top 10 pieces of advice to you:

1)  Open your heart to each and every one of your patients.

2) Be proud of your clinical handouts & homework; they are an extension of you.

 

3) Put yourself in your client’s shoes. See things from their perspective &  understand their needs.

 

4) Identify an SLP superstar and watch them. Ask them questions and soak up as much as you can of their knowledge.

 

5) Never avoid seeking out help or advice from other SLPs!​ It shows your commitment to the field and your dedication to your therapy.

 

6) Develop a clinical style that fits; Let your personality shine through in your therapy and your work with others.

 

7) When working with a challenging patient, always focus on their strengths and meet them where they are at not where you want them to eventually be.

 

8) Strive for FUN. The more engaging you are, the more motivated your patient will be to communicate with you. Don't doubt the learning that can occur during play!

 

9) Be sure your patients know their goals in speech therapy and why it allows them to communicate better! They will be more invested in therapy if they know what they are doing and why!

 

10) Never stop learning. Excellent Speech-Language Pathologists should never stop learning, despite their years of experience.

 

We wish you all the best, and hope you treasure the opportunity to touch the lives of others in the field of Speech-Language Pathology as much as we do!

The SOS (Sequential Oral Sensory) Approach to Feeding

Chatterboxes' Speech Language Pathologists are trained to utilize the SOS (Sequential Oral Sensory) Approach to Feeding, a family-centered treatment method to address pediatric feeding difficulties.

Feeding is one of the most complicated tasks your child will ever complete and a skill that takes most children at least two years to learn. To eat an age appropriate diet that meets his or her nutritional needs, your child’s internal organs, sensory system, and oral-motor muscles must all be developing appropriately and working together. Given the complexity of feeding, it is no wonder that roughly 25% of children struggle with eating at some point in their lives.

The SOS treatment approach takes the complexity of feeding into account, assessing the “whole child” to identify specific skills such as biting, chewing, and sensory modulation and regulation with which a child may be struggling. Often problematic feeding behaviors develop as a result of skills deficits and can be eliminated by building a child’s feeding abilities. For example, a toddler with weak oral motor skills who has difficulty chewing will learn quickly that tough-to-chew foods like meats and raw vegetable do not work for her mouth; she may develop problem behaviors such as running from the table or tossing her plate on the floor to avoid taking a bite of these challenging foods. Similarly, a child with Autism who is unable to recognize his favorite yogurt when it’s not presented in its usual container may scream and cry when it’s presented in a new bowl. Identifying the underlying cause of these behaviors allows our clinicians to develop a treatment plan specifically tailored to your child’s unique needs.

During the therapy process, the SOS Approach uses systematic desensitization to enhance a child's ability to explore and tolerate novel foods, by providing him or her opportunities to interact with new foods in increasingly complex ways. For example, a child who initially is not able to tolerate the sight of a certain food on the table will be taught through play to touch the food, kiss the food, lick the food, and ultimately taste, chew, and swallow it- all while having fun in an encouraging and relaxed environment. Using play-based therapy techniques and positive reinforcement, children are taught the necessary skills they need to broaden the range of foods they consume and engage in positive mealtime behaviors. To ensure carryover to the home environment, clinicians work closely with parents and caregivers, offering detailed strategies to help children transfer skills from the therapy room to the dinner table.

Contact Chatterboxes to learn more or click here: www.sosapproach-conferences.com/about-us/sos-approach-to-feeding