Other SLP Blogs I Like

If you like reading my blog, you may like some other speech and language blogs by some amazing practitioners. Add these blogs to your bookmarks to get great tips.

1. Blog: Speech Reads by Erin Gaul, Your Speech Path, LLC. Erin specializes in Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), other Speech Sound Disorders, and Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy.

2. Abramson AAC blog by Jennifer Abramson, Abramson AAC.  Jennifer is an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) specialist, Adjunct Clinical Instructor at the MGH Institute of Health Professions, author and international lecturer. Check out her post on enhancing communication during the time of Covid here!

3. All Things Communication Blog by Brittany Monroy, M.C.D., CCC-SLP of All Things Communication. All Things Communication blog posts cover a range of topics including: speech fluency, receptive language, expressive language, and prelinguistic skills. This blog is intended for parents and professionals working with young children ages birth to preschool.

4. Building Better Speech and Language by Miranda Wolff.  Miranda specializes in early intervention and focuses on functional and meaningful goals to support children and their families. Check out some activities and topics about everyday life and overall language development in the early years.

My Board Game Recommendations For Language Development

I love Candyland as much as the next mama and SLP (we play it at least 5x, every night….), but if you’re looking for new (albeit last minute) game ideas, I’ve got some suggestions for the 2-4 year old crowd!

🎖️RACE TO THE TREASURE: Take turns in this cooperative game building a path to the treasure before the Ogres get there. Great for turn taking and visual motor skills, I have clients that ask to play this game every week.

📍 ZINGO: This game is fantastic for early vocabulary and sentence building. “I got the bat” “Not a match” are just a few of the sentences to practice. Your child learns to match pictures with this game, too. Too easy? Get the sight word version!

🐿️ SNEAKY SNACKY SQUIRREL: Practice color identification, labeling and matching with this game. It has squirrel tweezers too for fine motor skill practice.

🐧 THIN ICE: Need a game to support speech sound practice at home? This game is great for multiple repetitions (“Say a speech homework word before each turn.”) It also can reinforce color names and is so fun to watch a child’s excitement grow as the tissue stretches thinner!

Kids learn through play. Remember, sometimes we need to work up towards the full attention for a board game too. If your child isn’t immediately excited to play a new game, that’s OK! Sometimes, they just need a little practice to really understand what’s going on. And then, you’ll play it again and again and again and again 😉

My Book Recommendations For Language Development

There are few gifts that you can give a child that are more meaningful and supportive than books.

Did you know the Fairfax library now tells you how much money you save by using the library? We’re at over $5k, just by checking out weekly books for my 3 year old over a few months!!

PRESS HERE: Here’s an awesome interactive book, where your toddler can’t man-handle the pages and destroy the cute little flaps. In this book, help your child learn various action words (press, turn, push) and modifiers (gently, a little bit) while they perform magic on the pages! This book is great for little ones who struggle to pay attention to longer texts.

Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?: Research tells us that many little ones imitate sounds before they do words. This book is perfect for that! My husband jokes that I “moo” for a living, but hey if it engages a child and gets them to communicate, I’ll quack, moo, and vroom all day long!

Poke-a-Dot: Another great option for children to interact with a book! Poke-a-Dots have engaged even my most inattentive clients because they get auditory and tactile feedback from this text! We practice counting and following directions with these books too.

Where Is Baby’s Belly Button?: I love a good book with flaps, so much so that the majority of mine have been surgically repaired with multiple rounds of scotch tape! The “Where Is Baby’s?” series is excellent for attention to stories, following directions, basic vocabulary, and prepositions (in, on, under).

If all else fails, get books on your child’s favorite subjects. In addition to the library books on our weekly theme, my 3 year old and I read the same books about Lightning McQueen and Paw Patrol every single night. He can’t get enough of them. If I mess up one word, he catches me!

I Got The Shot!

Thrilled to protect my family, my friends and my clients. So thankful my years at Inova gave me this opportunity and thankful for science. There is a light at the end of this dark tunnel 🙏

My Toy Recommendations For Language Development

Need gift ideas for a little one? Give them something fun and educational that supports language development! Here are just a few of my favorite toys for little ones (ages 6 months to 2 years)

⚽ 1. BALL POPPER: I’ve never met a child who doesn’t love this toy! I gift it to every friend with a baby. This toy is great for turn-taking and setting up opportunities to request “more.” It also turns off and on, so the child must engage with the toy.

🏥2. CRITTER CLINIC: Kids love opening and closing things, and this toy provides an endless amount of that! You can switch up what is hidden in each door as you please. The lock can be tricky (intentionally) setting up the perfect opportunity for a child to request “help.” Practice pretend play and work on naming and identifying colors and animals!

🚗 3. PULL BACK CARS: Toys don’t have genders. Cars are for everyone – especially these types that you can pull back and let zoom through your play area. Parents say, “Ready.. Set..” as you pull back the car and let your child fill in “go!” Make the cars go “under” and “over” objects to practice location words. Add sound effects as often times, children imitate sounds before words! “ZOOM! BEEP!”

🐷4. PIGGY BANK: Take the batteries out of this one if you’re little one gets distracted by it. This is another toy that’s great for putting things in and taking out – a baby/toddler fav thing to do! Children can request “more” or label the animals on the colorful coins. This is a great toy to practice animal sounds. If all else fails, do something unexpected and put a coin on your head instead of in the bank. Your little one will likely giggle 😂 and try to correct you – a great opportunity to use their communication skills!