Every few days or so, I read through recent comments posted throughout the blog and attempt to address the questions that have been raised by our readers. One of the most pressing issues that is frequently raised by parents reading the blog is apraxia. When I review the questions and concerns asked by parents, I can hear the intense concern and ...

Tuesday's post discussed the various ways speech therapists can treat young children in early intervention who have been diagnosed with autism. The question posed to the public was the following: when you are teaching these children to communicate, do you use sign language, pictures, words or a combination of either two or all three of them? In ...

Today’s post poses a question for all the speech-language pathologists out there who work with children in early intervention who have already been diagnosed as having autism. My question is this: when you are teaching these children to communicate, do you use sign language, pictures, words or a combination of either two or all three of them?The ...

About eight months ago I began working with a little girl, who at the time had just turned 2 years old, and had also recently been diagnosed with Rhett Syndrome (RS). This was not a syndrome that I was very familiar with so I depended a great deal on the expertise of my colleagues, as well as my own independent research, to create a therapy plan ...

Thank you all so much for sharing your comments and research in our oral motor debate! As Lisa, CCC-SLP from VT stated, I ''certainly stirred the pot'' with last week's post. I did want to get us talking, but I didn't mean to create such a firestorm! This debate reminded me that I am part of a very devoted and passionate profession of women and ...

I must admit, I love a good controversy every once in awhile! Recently I have been both fascinated and flabbergasted by some of the comments posted on the blog related to oral-motor therapy and its effectiveness. I myself am a huge supporter of oral-motor therapy and use it almost everyday with the majority of the children I treat in EI. I was ...

A Message to Readers: Recently, more and more readers have been commenting on the blog and have also been sending me personal emails asking for advice and guidance regarding various populations and disabilities. I absolutely love the feedback and I think the networking that has occurred is invaluable. What I am attempting to do in order to ...

I recently received an email from a speech pathology graduate student inquiring about strategies I could recommend regarding how to stimulate speech and language with a child with Down syndrome. Reading her email reminded me that I have not yet written a post about children diagnosed with Down syndrome, despite the fact that this population of ...

Last week's blog highlighted all the non-therapy related items that are necessities when working in EI Home Care. Today's post addresses the therapy related tools that I use frequently in EI and I feel are an absolute MUST with the age group and population! Bubbles! Kids love bubbles! There is only one child I have ever worked with who didn't ...

On Friday, I posted the first half of my interview with Christy Marzzacco. She is a therapist dually certified as a teacher of the deaf (CED—Certified Teacher of the Deaf) and a speech language pathologist (CCC-SLP).  She also has a special certification as a Listening and Spoken Language Specialist (LSLS) Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist ...