Chronic ear infections can contribute to speech and language delay because the fluid and inflammation they cause temporarily reduce a child’s hearing, and children learn to talk by hearing the sounds of language clearly and consistently. When hearing comes and goes during the years a child is building speech, the foundation for those skills can […]
Receptive language is a child’s ability to understand what is said to them, and expressive language is their ability to put thoughts into words. They are two distinct skills, and a child can be strong in one and delayed in the other. Understanding which is which is the first step toward knowing whether to watch,
Receptive vs Expressive Language: How to Tell the Difference and When to Seek Help Read More »
Kindergarten speech and language readiness means a child can be understood by unfamiliar adults, follow multi-step spoken directions, use complete sentences to explain and ask, and hear the sounds inside words well enough to begin learning to read. Those four abilities carry more of the kindergarten day than most parents realize, because nearly everything in
Screen time affects speech development primarily by displacing the back-and-forth conversation that young children need to learn language, and research links higher-than-recommended screen use in the earliest years to measurable delays in communication. This is one of the most common questions I hear from parents, and the honest answer is that screens are not automatically
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A late talker is a toddler between about 18 and 30 months who understands language and develops normally in every other way, but has a noticeably small spoken vocabulary for their age. The reassuring part is that being a late talker is common, and many late talkers catch up on their own. The harder part
Is Your Toddler A Late Talker? When You Should Be Concerned Read More »
Raising a child with two languages does not cause speech or language disorders, and bilingualism is not a reason a child would need speech therapy. This is the single most important thing for parents to understand, because the worry that “too many languages” is confusing a child is one of the most common – and
Speech Therapy and Bilingual Children: What Treasure Coast Parents Should Know Read More »
Supporting speech therapy at home means weaving short, intentional practice into your child’s everyday routines so the skills they build in therapy carry over into real life. A child typically spends less than an hour a week with a speech-language pathologist and the rest of the week with you, which is why what happens at
An articulation disorder is trouble making one or a few specific speech sounds the right way – a “lispy s,” a “w” for “r,” or a “th” that does not sound like a “th.” A phonological disorder is trouble with the patterns of how sounds are organized, where a child consistently simplifies whole groups of
Language milestones describe what a child says and understands – how many words they use, how they put words together, how they follow directions, and how they ask questions. Speech sound milestones describe how clearly a child produces the sounds of their language – whether a stranger can understand them, and which consonants and vowels
Stuttering in young children is a disruption in the smooth flow of speech — most often appearing as repetitions of sounds, syllables, or short words (“b-b-ball,” “I-I-I want”), prolongations (“sssssnake”), or audible blocks where the child seems “stuck” mid-word. It is common, it is not the parent’s fault, and most preschool-age children who briefly stutter