I seem to be having a recurring conversation this month. Parents are concerned that their child is “falling behind.” At first, I spent most of the conversations reassuring parents that we are all trying to float on the same ocean during this pandemic. Then I realized that I didn’t have enough information. I really didn’t know what people were talking about when they were sharing their concerns. I …
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Can You Understand Your Child’s Speech?
This post originally published on the OEF blog on March 21,2019. Due to it's popularity and valuable information we are reposting it here for you. It’s common for most children to make some mistakes as they learn to say new words. Different sounds are mastered at different ages. Consistent, correct sound production will vary from child to child. When mistakes continue past a certain age, …
Why I Am an Amanda Gorman Fan and EVERY Speech Therapist Should Be Too
Prior to January 20, 2021, I had never heard of Amanda Gorman. Add it to the long list of things I am not cultured about. One can only digest so much content out there in the world, but I digress. On January 20th, I decided to watch the inauguration. In addition to the momentous occasion of our first female Vice President, I’m a huge Garth Brooks fan, so I was delighted to see him walk out in …
iso·la·tion. It’s a sad, sad word.
How to know if it is affecting your child. According to Merriam Webster, the definition of isolate (verb) is “to set apart from others; also : quarantine.” or as a noun, “an individual socially withdrawn or removed from society,” or as an adjective, “being alone.” I remember about 15 years ago. I was a stay at home mom with two boys, one of whom was special needs, and my husband traveled a …
Screen Time Delays Speech in Children
This post originally published on the OEF blog on May 18, 2017. Due to it's popularity and valuable information we are reposting it here for you. Hand-held screens might delay a child’s ability to form words, based on new research presented at the annual Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in San Francisco. This preliminary study is the first to show how mobile …
Deciding to Add a Pet to Your Special Needs Household
When a person first meets me it often does not take long before they learn I am an avid dog lover (some would say my love borders on obsession!). Bring up a dog in conversation and you have my rapt attention. I also am an intervention specialist for preschoolers diagnosed on the autism spectrum. I am very passionate about my profession and would not want to teach any other population of …
What Do You Do If Someone Teases You For a Speech Disorder?
People are teased for lots of reasons, none of them compassionate. Sometimes it’s for things they can (we assume) control. We justify it by saying they could change their behavior or haircut or style of dress. Or we blame it on how they respond to teasing: if they took it with a sense of humor or didn’t overreact, the teasing would stop. All but the least empathetic of us, however, find it …
Orange Effect Foundation Reaches Milestone 5,000 Hours of Speech Therapy Grants
CLEVELAND - Dec. 16, 2020 - PRLog -- It is fitting that in addition to celebrating the fifth consecutive year of awarding grants for speech therapy and speech devices, the Orange Effect Foundation celebrates another exciting milestone. The Orange Effect Foundation has now funded 5,000 hours of speech therapy for children throughout the United States who otherwise would be …
Different? Not At All
Who’s different now? Watching an autistic grandson grow up, there was no question that in his preteen years, especially until the age of around ten, he was definitely different. He was different in that he did not look you in the eye or look at you at all when you talked to him, although he definitely was listening and understood what you were saying. His reactions to you were simply …
No Two People Handle a Pandemic the Same: A Covid-19 Story
Last March, when the pandemic really started to take shape here in Ohio (we went on a shelter in place order), this article came across my Facebook feed that made me laugh out loud. I immediately forwarded it to my son, who is the true summation of the people described in this article. I felt reassured because the article says: To prepare for the onslaught of the deadly disease, …
How to Get Special Needs Children Started in Investing
As a father of a son on the autism spectrum, I was always looking for ways to interact with my son outside of his ongoing speech therapy sessions. Like many children on the spectrum, my son was fascinated with toys like LEGO bricks, but also with numbers. Since I had a passion for investing myself, I believed that would be a perfect area to bond, as well as learn, with my special needs’ …
Speech Related Holiday Gifts for Preschoolers
Following our post about gifts for toddlers, we didn’t want to leave out their slightly older energetic counterparts, the preschoolers. You’ll see that in both posts many of the ideas can overlap ages. You’ll know what’s a good fit for the young one in your life. If you have any great suggestions to add please do comment! We love resources! At Home Scavenger Hunt. Any kind of scavenger hunt is …
