“When we teach mindfulness to kids, we give them the tools they need to build confidence, cope with stress, and relate to uncomfortable or challenging moments. The earlier we do so in their young lives, the greater the opportunity to help them cultivate resilience and develop and refine their mindfulness practice as they mature.”
Mindful.org offers great resources, including an introduction to mindfulness, guided meditations, and at-home tips and activities for the whole family.
The SLP Center will be OPEN for normal business hours next Wednesday, November 11th.
Please inform your therapist of any schedule adjustments that you may need. Thanks!
“During a health threat such as a coronavirus, people should wear masks in public. Wearing masks gives people some protection. At the same time, many masks hide the lips and half of the face, which makes it harder to understand speech. It is also hard to understand sign language when the person is wearing a mask. Facial expressions are an important part of sign language. It is very important to wear masks to stay safe during a pandemic, but also very important that deaf and hard of hearing people can understand what everyone is saying.
Our guidelines explain the best ways to communicate with deaf and hard of hearing people while following health recommendations. Our guidelines do not explain how much each mask or face shield protects people from any virus.”
In light of the start of school, you may have realized that your children’s eating habits look very different now versus one year ago. If you’re finding it hard to get back on track in terms of meals and snack times, check out the New York Times article linked here. The author shares insights regarding her own children’s current eating schedules and tips on how to regain a meal and snack time schedule.
Many amazing companies have offered generous discounts up to 50% off applications in celebration of AAC Awareness Month. These companies include Avaz Inc., AssistiveWare, and PRC-Saltillo. These discounts will expire today or in the next few days. Visit our website for more information on all the available sales and how to act now!
PRC-Saltillo is joining in on the AAC Awareness Month discount fun! Enjoy 50% off all AAC applications, including TouchChat and LAMP Words For Life, from October 14-18!
AssistiveWare will be offering 50% off all AAC applications, including Proloquo2Go. This sale will run from October 12-16 in the app store - no code required!
Friendly reminder to all our families, the SLP Center will be closed on Monday, October 12, 2020 in observation of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Please call the office with any questions or schedule changes!
To celebrate the start of AAC Awareness Month, Avaz Inc. will be offering 50% off all AAC products from October 1 - 15, 2020. Visit their website so you don’t miss this amazing sale!
Check out this awesome list of “back to school” books for children! No matter what your school schedule looks like this year, the transition from summer to fall can only be helped with these cute stories. Supplement your children’s speech and language goals by practicing words with their target speech sounds, pointing out vocabulary, and discussing personal connections to the book.
Back-to-school season is here! Even though learning might be looking a little different this year, there are plenty of resources to help students, teachers, and families along the way. This website is here to help! Click below to get started. Happy learning!
“As the new school year nears, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is offering advice for parents of the more than 1 million U.S. children who receive school-based treatment for speech and language disorders to help their children perform and adjust to new virtual and modified in-person learning environments.”
Friendly reminder to all our families, the SLP Center will be closed on Monday, September 7th, 2020 in observation of Labor Day. We hope you all enjoy the final long weekend of summer! Please call the office with any questions or schedule changes!
“From honeybees to beautiful birds, it’s easy to make changes to your backyard that will attract wildlife. Our guide explains how you can transform your backyard and turn it into your very own wildlife sanctuary.” Click the link below and have fun!
Scavenger hunts are a fun and easy summer activity – they’re inexpensive, entertaining for the whole family, and can be done no matter the location (indoors, outside, at the beach, etc.). Check out this website for free, printable scavenger hunts or get creative and make your own!
Here are some ideas on how you can tailor your scavenger hunt to practice speech and language skills:
Articulation: Put together a list of items that contain your child’s speech sound. For example, if your child is working on the /l/ sound, you could include words like leaf, log, caterpillar, dandelion, and snail for a backyard scavenger hunt.
Language: You can use scavenger hunts to target a number of concepts your child is working on, such as shapes, letters, descriptors (e.g., soft vs. hard, tall vs. short), categories, etc. The opportunities are endless!
If you are a dog lover, you will enjoy this new study! “Humans keep talking to dogs whose sensitivity to human communicative signs is well known. Both the words what we say and the intonation how we say them carry information for them. For example, when we tell ‘sit’ many dogs can sit down. Similarly, when we praise dogs with a high toned voice, they may notice the positive intent. We know very little, however, on what is going on in their brains during these.” Researchers are using MRIs to study how dogs are processing speech and findings indicate plenty of similarities with how humans process speech! Read the article here!
The hottest part of summer has definitely arrived and your stay-at-home activities may have slowly dried up… Never fear! Click here for fun summer activities to keep cool and work on speech and language at the same time. We love the ideas of ice sensory play and smoothie making to target your child’s specific speech and language goals. Stay cool!
Making a volcano is a great way to target speech and language goals! However, make sure you do this activity outside! See an outline below and grab the full details here!
Ingredients:
Dish soap
Cold water
White vinegar
Food coloring
Baking soda slurry (fill a cup about ½ with baking soda, then fill the rest of the way with water)
Empty 2 liter soda bottle or water bottle
Instructions:
Combine the vinegar, water, dish soap and 2 drops of food coloring into the empty soda bottle.
Use a spoon to mix the baking soda slurry until it is all a liquid.
Eruption time! … Pour the baking soda slurry into the soda bottle quickly and step back!
While this is a fun activity, you can also focus on speech and language!
Articulation – while making the volcano, keep an ear open for the speech sounds your child is currently working on in therapy. For example, if your child is working on the /k/ sound you could target: cold water, volcano, food coloring, keep stirring, etc. Incorporating difficult speech sounds into play helps to reduce stress and creates natural opportunities to practice.
Sequencing – review the steps of making the volcano with your child and see if they can predict the next step while you are making the volcano! We recommend using full sentences to help incorporate transition words (e.g. First, Next, Last).
“As states start to ease restrictions related to COVID-19, many families are looking for healthy ways to play outdoors. But what can you actually do outside with your children while staying at a safe distance from others? Think nature exploration!” See the full list of suggestions by clicking below. Enjoy!
While it may look different than we’re used to, we are happy to be back!
