Leaps & Bounds SLT

Some great strategies here for late talkers 🤩

Our little Easter babe 💙✨️ Dáithí Boyd ✨️💙 arrived on Thursday 28th March. In love ❤️

⛔️ QUESTIONS ⛔️

Lots of people try to use questions to elicit speech from children but, to develop communication further, we would recommend
❌️ reducing the questions ❌️ and
⬆️⬆️ using comments more ⬆️⬆️

Give your child the language they require, at the appropriate level. Use simple words/sounds and different types of words (naming words, action words, describing words).

SLTs would generally recommend using the five finger rule.... 4 comments for every 1 question...sometimes it can be useful to have this little visual displayed, to remind you to take 5 and to try to use this strategy.

Giving your child the words they need for a situation is a more effective way to develop language than putting demands on them to answer questions. Give it a try 👌 make it part of your routine 👌

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas surrounded by your nearest and dearest ❤️ 🎄✨️

I have been overwhelmed by all the support and well wishes since starting out with this little venture in April and I am finishing off 2023 feeling so grateful 🙏 🥰 very proud of all the little people I have had the pleasure of meeting so thank you! 😊 Merry Christmas

Well done Southern Health and Social Care Trust on a fantastic website to help support parents and professionals develop children's communication skills 🤩🙌 Check it out! Super advice 👌

📢 Exciting news! We are thrilled to announce the launch of a new section on our website dedicated to Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy in the Southern Trust. Developed by our expert team, it provides valuable advice and support for parents and carers. Check it out now!
https://pulse.ly/ilry6kh1xd
👪🌟

It's World Nursery Rhyme week next week and we ❤️ nursery rhymes at Leaps & Bounds 🎶🎵

It doesn't matter if you can sing or not and it doesn't matter how young or old your little ones are...from bump to school...children love nursery rhymes 🤩

They are amazing to
✨️promote communication and gestures/actions
✨️develop interaction and joint attention
✨️distract your child in the car or during changing times
✨️develop rhyming and early literacy skills
amongst other benefits! What's not to love?

I bought this little set from Amazon a few years ago and they are brilliant at developing/promoting choices for rhymes, but grab a bucket of objects from around the house to signify a rhyme (e.g. the bus for 'wheels on the bus') and it's the same idea 💡

Leave out a final word and see if your child knows it or can vocalise or use an action for it. Use a big pause at certain points to see if they join in with you.

It doesn't matter if you are singing the songs, reading them aloud from a book or have them on the speaker (thanks for the soundtrack to my life).

🌟Developing verbs / action words 🏊🤸🏌‍♀️🤹‍♀️🤾‍♂️

We know what the expected first words generally are but are you teaching your little one verbs/action words as well as the name of objects??

Verbs are so important to language development as you can't make sentences without a verb, it is difficult to request help or explain what you need without a verb and it is so important for our children to have a range of words in their vocabulary.

I have put up a few ideas and strategies to help but you can teach these words through lots of everyday activities....
💫 playing together,
💫 in the bath (pour/splash/wash/dry),
💫 eating together (cut/chop/eat/drink)
💫 in the car (drive/stop/walk/cycle)
💫 reading together (who is running/sleeping)

We missed PLAYDAY on 2nd August but I have seen some brilliant, low or no cost ideas for play advertised and thought I would put them up here for ideas for parents over the summer holidays 😀

I have been quiet this week as we have been having the best time taking days out with family and friends 💕🫶 ...lots of language learning opportunities in the great outdoors!

Days out provide so much fun and interaction/engagement with others! We have packed picnics nearly every day which is brilliant craic in itself 🍱 and gives us lots of chances to develop vocabulary 💡

🌦 the changeable weather has given us lots of opportunity to practice our opposites: wet/dry, in/out, hot/cold, up/down and also to practice our dressing skills 🙈🙈

🚜 we had a visit to the farm and practiced lots of animal noises, for the babies with us, 💗 as well as modelling and expanding the phrases the toddlers were using and asking and answering lots of questions 😄😂

We have had such a lovely time, going to lots of parks (Gosford, Loughgall, Peatlands) and had a visit to Streamvale farm!

Comment below if you have any other good ideas for local days out 👇🙌

🙌 IMAGINATION 🙌

This little star today was pretending to be my hairdresser and spontaneously used this pencil ➡️ as a shower head to wash my hair, scissors to cut it and a hairdryer to dry 😅  then a hedge trimmer (nothing to do with my hair 🤭 his daddy was cutting the hedge beside us!)

It got me thinking about the development of play skills and the importance of developing imagination in play...for some people it comes naturally when playing with kids but others might need some support.

Earlier pretend play tends to revolve around your child:

🧼copying you in actions around the house (cooking/cleaning/fixing things etc.)

🧸playing with dolls and teddies to feed them, burp them, put them to bed

🎂kitchen play/making you tea

🚜placing items into objects or relating them together (like a farmer into the tractor or animals into the barn)

✨️Play then becomes more complex and imaginative, such as

🖥 copying their favourite TV programmes with their own miniature characters

👸🦸 pretending to be superheroes or favourite characters

Or like the pencil today....pretending items are used for different purposes or using make-believe objects 💭

Communication is such an integral part of this, and play can be used to develop lots of essential speech and language skills as well.

💇‍♂️💆 now taking bookings for my in-house hairdresser 💆💇‍♂️

Some top tips here for water play ideas👌

🌞🤸‍♂️🚴‍♂️ WILD AND FREE 🚴‍♂️🤸‍♂️🌞

Anyone else's children just adore being outside and free on these glorious summer days??

The sun is shining, a brilliant way to keep the activity levels up and also to tire them out for bedtime 🙌💕

I thought it might be useful to post a few tips for developing communication skills as part of outdoor play! Everyone's a winner 👌

🤸‍♂️We are loving following instructions through action games like:
💫 Simon says
💫 What time is it Mr Wolf?
💫 Musical statues

These games also work on attention and listening skills and gross motor skills, like hopping, jumping, running etc.

🚴‍♂️On the bikes we play games like 'stop/go' or follow instructions like "can you cycle to the blue cone/ go to the gate"

👣Treasure hunts are a brilliant way to follow instructions through clues as well. You can make them easier for younger children, e.g. colours and harder for older ones.

🛝 Slides/Swings are also great ways to practice those early functional communication skills: more, up, again, 'wee', higher, climb, push, ready steady go!!

💬 or just bring therapy activities outdoors! It might just increase motivation 🤗

Comment below 👇👇 with any other ideas you have for outdoor play to help other parents 😀

FOLLOWING YOUR CHILD'S LEAD

A really good tip to develop your little one's engagement, interaction and communication skills is
💫 following their lead 💫

It really helps you to see what motivates them, to create communication opportunities, helps you play and engage with them at their level and also to interact how they want you to interact.

Now I'm not saying to follow their lead all the time... we still have to be parents and caregivers and teach skills, such as developing their ability to play with a purpose (completing puzzles or shape sorters) or follow an adult's agenda (to tidy up or leave the park) but at certain times of the day, it can be very empowering for little ones and a very successful way to develop your bond 🥰🤩

Respond to any attempts of engagement with you, when they lead you to an item of interest, point at something, look towards something... name it, pick the object up, jointly look at it together.

If your little one struggles to play together with you, get a similar item and play alongside them. Make the same noises and sounds they are making and WAIT ✋️ do they watch you? Smile? Laugh? Do the same noise again?
The magic moment is achieved ✨️ 🙌

✅️ Be at their level
✅️ Face to face, if they are willing or side by side if not.
✅️ If at first you don't succeed, keep trying 🌈 Good luck!

Sun's out 🌞 beach days are here ⛱️

Yay!!!! What a week we've had with the sun eventually arriving! We have been blessed with a weeks holiday to enjoy that beautiful weather 🙌

We had a beach day yesterday and what a fab way for developing language...as well as sensory exploration, social skills, gross motor skills and having fun with your little ones 😀 👌

Some ideas for vocabulary development:

🪣 Playing with sand - dig, spades, buckets, dumper truck, digger, rake, tip, one more load, build it up, sandcastles, shells, wet/dry.... messy play rules 🙌

💦 Water- splash, pour, cold/warm, fill up, watering can, empty/full, wet/dry, clean/dirty, dive.... bring on the paddling pools and splashing in waves 🌊

Sun please stay 🌞🙌 Use all these daily opportunities to develop communication skills 🤩🤗

FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS - WORD LEVELS 👂👌

Sometimes it can be very confusing when someone asks or tells you what level your child's understanding is, and how to set up activities for that level.

Before pure verbal understanding develops, SLTs would often say your child should understand general daily routines, maybe wave bye/clap/give a high 5 and usually understand the tone of your voice or some simple commands like 'tata' or 'give mummy a kiss'.

As a very general rule of thumb, I would say
a 1️⃣ year old should be following 1 word level instructions,
a 2️⃣ year old should be able to follow 2 word level instructions and
at 3️⃣ years old, your child should be following 3 word level + instructions, as well as understanding basic questions etc.

Here are a few little ideas at each word level...

⭐️🌈 Single word level: give items to familiar people or point out people in a photo, understand object names (get your shoe/ball etc.) select puzzle pieces when you ask, point to pictures in a book, point to body parts - just a few ideas but you can use anything around the house 💡

⭐️🌈 2 word level: when you have at least 2 choices of each part of the instruction, such as teddy/dolly and a range of food items or food items and plates/bowls and you say "give Teddy the banana" "dolly wants cake", "can you put the pizza on the plate" etc. Or you might have lots of animals to either wash/dry/brush/feed... and you ask your child can you "brush the cow", "make horsey go to sleep". In the pictures here we used animals into vehicles and Ben/Holly into places around the house.

⭐️🌈 3 word level is extending this further, using concepts (e.g. size/colours/position words)...for example, you have a choice of big and small animals and you say "feed the big cow" or "put the small dog under the chair". In the pictures here, we put the animals either 'in/on/under/behind' the vehicles, big/small animals on the furniture and put picnic items on "snow-white's blue bowl".
There are some excellent ideas and resources out there targeting all these levels, try some out with your little one to see what level they are achieving and 📞 me if you are concerned about your child 🌟🤩

PARENT AND TODDLER GROUPS...

Are amazing opportunities for language learning, communication development and also really help develop those vital social interaction skills for little ones!

You can get real life opportunities for developing sharing, turn-taking, negotiating 🤣, making friends, requesting, introducing yourself....plus parents normally get a cuppa and a vital chat with other parents, likely to be going through the same stage 🤗🥳

Here are a few I know of in the local area but please comment or tag others below as I'm sure there are lots of other great ones around 👇👇

For the week that's in it, with on, I thought we'd focus on farm animals and play..

We have a farming mad boy here who got this lovely handmade farm for his birthday...it provides amazing language learning opportunities 😊

🌟 Following instructions - you can move from single word level commands ("where's the cow?", "find the tractor", "who says baa?")

To two word level ("put the tractor in the barn", "feed the pig", "where's the dog's tail?")

To 3 word level instructions...and beyond ("put the big sheep in the tractor", "give the horse an apple and the cow some hay") etc.

🌟 Pretend play - we have hours of fun moving the animals in the tractor, the farmer washing or feeding them, putting them in the wrong places, playing hide and seek.

🌟 Communication opportunities to develop expressive language, using symbolic noises of animals, getting your child to request using words if they have them or pointing/signing/reaching out when given a choice

🌟 Expanding language, if your child has words, making them into 2 word phrases "cow sleeping", "tractor go" etc

🌟 Messy play opportunities if you added some "mud" or water

🌟 Sorting and categorising, animals or colours, or which animals don't belong...

This list goes on...use your child's motivators and interests to see the best progress 🙌 👌 👏

Good luck and enjoy the show if you're lucky enough to be going 😉 🐔🐄🐖🐕🫏🚜

🌟 OBJECTS OF REFERENCE 🌟

For little ones who are finding it hard to understand daily routines or verbal language, or for younger toddlers, we would often encourage parents to use objects of reference to represent a person, activity or event 😉

Here are a few examples 👆👆👆 for you to guess and some tips below 👇👇👇

👀 Use real objects that you use for that particular activity

👀 Use the same object every time for that activity

👀 Give your child the object to hold and do the activity immediately after to help them link both together

They work!!! Because....

💡they help children to link the word they are hearing to the object and then to the activity

💡it's a visual cue and it is permanent, it doesn't disappear like your speech does

💡objects are easier to understand than pictures/symbols and they mean something in that activity

When your little one understands the connection between one object and activity, you can start to introduce "first/then" to support transitions between several activities and possibly reduce frustration. For example "first teeth, then bed" Get in touch if you have any questions or queries about this or your child's communication skills 🌈 ⭐️

🌈🌟 At Leaps & Bounds SLT we love to play 🌈🌟     Why??

Play is a child's "work"...it's how they learn best and it is vital to the development of life skills, such as communication,  interaction, sharing, taking turns, problem-solving, negotiating, emotional development, creative thinking, gross and fine motor skills...the list goes on ❤️

Children develop skills faster when done through play so it's a no brainer why we use it so much in speech and language therapy.... plus it's good to have fun!

💡For younger children or those who are finding it difficult to play appropriately with toys, start with purposeful activities... such as posting toys, simple shape-sorters, pop-up or cause and effect toys, such as pressing buttons, simple puzzles.

💡Then begin to incorporate early pretend play/symbolic play into your routine...like making tea in the kitchen, hugging dolly, pretending to brush their own hair or holding a phone to their ear

💡 Play then becomes more imaginative and your child will start to combine simple scenarios in play, such as feeding the baby, burping it and putting it into bed or maybe using a different object for imaginary purposes (e.g. shoe as a phone).

You can use play to develop new communication skills by trying some of these ideas:
🌟 label items of interest to them
🌟 make silly noises or songs in play
🌟 repeat, repeat, repeat
🌟 give opportunities for your little one to communicate with you (taking items away that they need or just pausing your speech to see what they do)
🌟 develop understanding of instructions, concepts or questions
🌟 expand the words they are using into phrases or sentences.

You have got this 👌💕 get the toy box out! 🧩🧸🪅
Contact me if you have concerns about your child's play or communication skills 🌈🌟

🌈🌟 Are you worried about your child's speech sound development? 🤔 ⏬️⏬️

Here is a little tool to help you see the typical development of speech sounds by age ✨️

If your child is finding it difficult to make themselves understood and if their speech sounds unclear to other people, you could try ⏬️

💡Modelling the correct pronunciation of the word they are saying (e.g. your child says "the tat is on the tar" you repeat back "yes the cat is on the car") but don't expect your child to repeat it again

💡Try not to correct them by saying "it's not tat, can you say cat?"

💡Stop and wait. Give your child space to have a go at words but don't put them under pressure

💡Encourage your child to use gestures or show you what it is they want if you can't understand them

💡Be face to face and at their level when you are talking to them so they can watch how you produce sounds

Get in touch if you have any specific questions about your little one . Message me or give me a call on 07761287417🌈🌟

📣Are you free 7-8pm tomorrow night (Tuesday 18th April)?

😊Do you want to know more about children's speech and language development?

😊Click the link to register for our Basic Awareness training tonight: https://view.pagetiger.com/basic-awareness-webinar-training-dates/basic-awareness-training-dates

Hello 👋 I thought it was time to properly introduce myself on here!

My name is Laura and I am a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist. I am also a mummy to 2 little people 👫

🌟I have been working within the NHS sector for over 15 years and have a wealth of experience. I have worked with a wide variety of children with speech and language difficulties and feeding issues. I continue to work within the NHS combining it alongside my private practice, Leaps&Bounds SLT.

🌟I graduated from the University of Ulster (UUJ) in 2007 and have been a registered member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RSCLT) since then. I am also a member of the Association of Speech and Language Therapists in Independent Practice (ASLTIP) and a registered member of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

🌟I have extensive experience working with toddlers, pre-school and school-age children within a range of settings. I also develop and deliver a wide range of training courses for parents and professionals.

🌟I am passionate about early intervention and I have developed a child led, enthusiastic, play-based environment in Leaps&Bounds SLT that will support and empower parents to help their child develop their communication skills. I want to bring the fun into evidence-based therapy and help you to help your little one!

Get in touch if you have any questions 🌈🌟

Since starting out this little venture, I have had lots of enquiries about 'late talkers'....

So 🤷🏼‍♀️ what is a 'late talker?'
✨️ generally SLTs would classify a child/toddler between 18 months and 3 years who isn't really using many spoken words but there are no other concerns about their attention/play/interaction/learning or understanding of language a 'late talker'.

How can I help? 👉👉

🌟 get down and play at the same level as your child. Play beside them with something they are playing with and follow their lead. Your child will be much more motivated to communicate if they are interested in a toy. Use single words, see what your child is looking or pointing at and give them the word they need!

🌟create opportunities to communicate - use items your child needs your help with to bring yourself into the play. Use words like 'ready, steady....' and allow them time to communicate with you for 'go'...look for noises, body language, gestures...it doesn't have to be words!

🌟put motivating items in see through containers, it might be snacks for some! Use words like open/more/again/help

🌟if everything is going OK, make something go wrong...take a few pieces out of their favourite puzzle or put their Teddy up high on a shelf so they have to come to get you. Use words like 'uh-oh/help/down'

🌈🌟 for some little ones, talking is hard work and doesn't just come naturally 🌟🌈

I am here to help along the way, follow for more tips or drop me a message/call if you have any specific queries about your child