This week I am continuing my look at the condition of Cerebral Palsy (CP). Last week's post discussed some of the basic facts surrounding the condition and the overall affect CP can have on an individual. This week I am narrowing the focus and will look at how speech therapy can benefit a child who has been diagnosed with CP. According to the ...

Over the last 8 weeks I ran a series of blog posts highlighting what ''Normal or Typical Speech and Language Development Looks Like in Children Ages 0 to 5'', breaking down developmental stages and milestones by months and years. The goal of the series was twofold: First, I wanted to help educate parents who may not be familiar with childhood ...

Thank you for joining me for week 5 of my Normal Speech and Language Development Series! This week I am narrowing my look at children ages two to three years of age, as well as exploring the vast range of ''normal'' that exists when looking at childhood development. Last week's post cited information from both WebMD and ASHA regarding ...

''The Biggest Pizza Ever'' by JibJab Jr. is a fun book app that you can use to work on answering ''wh'' questions, teaching verbs, stating emotions and much much more.  Here's how it works: Choose who is going to be the main character of the book and then choose Create Character and add photo, name, and skin type. Now you are ready to ...

Autism Awareness Month began on Sunday, April 1. My son Doug's birthday is April 1. The fifth annual World Autism Awareness Day was April 2. World Autism Awareness Day ''aims to increase people's awareness about people, especially children, with autism. The day often features educational events for teachers, health care workers and parents, as ...

When do you elicit a language sample? Certainly when you first see a child you would want to take a language sample. However, if the child is not comfortable on the initial assessment, there is nothing written in stone that says that it has to be completed the first time around. That in itself should tell you something. I feel that ...

Dear Kathie: ''Chad is 5 years old and ‘very' autistic and non-verbal. He covers his ears with his hands when there is a loud noise, such as a fire alarm, or even when he anticipates a loud noise, like a balloon that he thinks may pop. How can I help him, his classroom teacher, and his parents? - Payton, speech-language pathologist My ...

Last week I wrote a post about using communication boards in a preschool classroom. This week I wanted to write a brief but hopefully thorough follow-up post about the effective use of such a tool in the classroom setting, and to examine its obvious limitations. One parent responded to last week's blog with the following: ''My daughter used ...

Working with young children with verbal apraxia in a preschool classroom poses many challenges. However, as we all know, there are also numerous opportunities for creative problem solving, especially with various technology and software programs at our fingertips. Today I would like to share a technique that has proven to be quite ...

Dear Kathie: ''Larry speaks so loudly. I can hear him coming from way down the hall in school. No one wants to sit by him in the lunchroom and his teacher is pulling her hair out. I've talked to Larry's mother and it's the same at home, in the library and at McDonald's. Any suggestions? And is this really in the realm of speech therapy for a ...