Lear Communication

10/16/2024

👻👻👻It is SPOOOOOOOKY season! 👻👻👻

Haunted houses are scary and all, but have you ever heard of these roadblocks in a person’s AAC journey? These are the super spooky things can happen to a person trying to access AAC. AAC is a wonderful resource, however, accessing AAC and finding support people who properly implement it can be challenging.

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What other haunted AAC stories have you heard?

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09/30/2024

NATIONAL TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION DAY

🟠The day honours the lost children and Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities. Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process.

🟠The creation of this federal statutory holiday was through legislative amendments made by Parliament. On June 3, 2021, Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Bills of Exchange Act, the Interpretation Act and the Canada Labour Code (National Day for Truth and Reconciliation) received Royal Assent.

🟠Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day that honours the children who survived residential schools and remembers those who did not. This day relates to the experience of Phyllis Webstad, a Northern Secwepemc (Shuswap) from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation, on her first day of school, where she arrived dressed in a new orange shirt, which was taken from her. It is now a symbol of the stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations.

09/26/2024

“You mean to tell me that you want me to say the word backwards to my kid?” 🤯

HUH⁉️🤔

Yes, that’s right‼️

🍝 When we are modeling multi-syllable words (i.e., spaghetti) and the child is unable to sequence the syllables together after you (i.e., spa-ghe-tti), try modeling the syllables in reverse order. When modeling like this, children are often able to sequence the syllables together with higher accuracy. We model each syllable starting at the end and add on the proceeding syllable as modeled in this post!

Go a head, give it a try and see if it helps! ♥️

09/18/2024

💭 Many people outside of the ‘speechie’ world have heard the word “lisp,” but did you know that there are multiple types of lisps?

💡 A lisp is when someone produces an inaccurate production of /s/ or /z/ and it is generally due to in correct airflow.

The 4 common types of lisps that we treat are:

1️⃣Interdental lisp – this is the type of lisp that most people think of when they hear the word “lisp.” It is when the tongue protrudes between the top and bottom teeth, creating more of a “th” sound.
2️⃣Dentalized lisp – this is like an interdental lisp, but instead of the tongue protruding through the upper and lower incisors, it presses against them, created a muffles version of /s/ and /z/.
3️⃣Lateral lisp – this is when the flow of air to produce /s/ and /z/ comes off the sides of the tongue rather than down the middle. People often describe this as slushy sounding speech.
4️⃣Palatal lisp – this occurs when a mid to back of tongue touches the soft palate instead of the alveolar ridge, creating more of an “SH” sound.

❗️Interdental and dentalized lisps can be apart of typical developmental speech up until the age of 4, however, lateral and palatal lisps are not, and should be addressed as soon as possible.

09/12/2024

😵‍💫Totally confused by this mumble-jumble? Many would be!

🍪 This kiddo is asking, “can I have a chocolate chip cookie?”

❗️As SLPs, we hear these common speech errors on a regular basis, but for new listeners, it can create a communication breakdown.

These speech errors can be totally typical up until certain ages – they are known as phonological processes. But after a certain age (dependent on the process) they are no longer developmentally appropriate and require direct speech sound interventions.

❓So as parents, what can you do?
💡 Look up your local SLP service providers (public and/or private) and contact them for an evaluation.

✨ When in doubt, reach out!! ✨

09/11/2024

🚫❌ SLP MYTH BUSTERS!! ❌🚫

Have you heard these statements before? Unfortunately, these are still common misconceptions that are floating around.

🇨🇦 If you have ANY concerns about your child’s language development, go directly to your local SLP. Here in Ontario, Canada, you can self-refer.

Don’t wait. There is no benefit to waiting.

08/29/2024

🚨 NEWS ALERT !! 🚨

👏🏼 Two of our new clinicians, Sara and Yazel, just finished their Clinical Master’s degree at Western University. In their studies, they pursued research in using group therapy to improve language outcomes in adults with acquired brain injury. This research was selected to be presented at this year’s American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA)’s 2024 Convention as part of its virtual program! Through critical appraisal of various studies, best practice guidelines, and systematic reviews, their research concluded that group therapy is beneficial in rehabilitation. It best supports community reintegration after an injury, it results in increased goal attainment, and patients report a more positive experience.

They are so excited to share this research with speech colleagues in North America, and to learn more from the research of others as well!

Way to go Sara and Yazel!! 🎉

08/27/2024

☀️Let’s recap our last week of literacy camp!

🏕️On August 12 – 16 we hosted our final literacy camp of the summer, targeted for students entering grades 2-4! With fun filled theme days, team building and some wacky activities, these kiddos not only had a blast, but also exceled in their reading and writing skills!

🤪Our camp offers a unique group format for students to improve their literacy skills. This past camp, we focused on decoding strategies such as understanding syllable types, morphology (suffixes) and descriptive language. The camp is designed to emerge the students in a literacy rich environment through fun, sensory and team building activities!

🎉Let’s talk about some of the highlights from each day!

🍃 Monday: nature day—the students were on a scavenger hunt to find various nature items that followed closed syllable rules such as CK (i.e., rock), DGE (i.e., hedge), TCH and FLOSS (i.e., grass).
🦕 Tuesday: dino day – the students discovered various dinosaurs and created fossils to match their footprints while learning how to decode each dinosaur name through syllable division strategies such as VC/CV
💦 Wednesday: water day – the students were placed in two teams and participated in a water race relay to fill their buckets and retrieve their bossy R related sentence, decode it and read it out loud correctly to win the race!
🏅Thursday day: Olympic day – the students “skated” across the room on paper plates to find their magic E Olympic related words!
🦸 Friday: superhero day – the students competed in two teams to crawl through Spiderman’s web to grab codes to put together (read sentences loaded with suffixes -s/-ing/-ed) and find their superhero prize (popsicles)!

We can’t wait for next summer already!🎉

08/12/2024

👏🏼 🆕 Join us in giving a warm welcome to our FOUR new clinicians!

👋🏻 Joining us in St Catharines is Madelyn (Maddy) and Samantha (Sam)! They are both recent graduates of the SLP master’s program and are patiently awaiting their CASLPO registration.

👋🏻 In Hamilton, we have Sara and Yazel, who also both completed their masters! Sara is a registered SLP and Yazel also awaits her registration!

Don’t forget to say HELLO to these wonderful clinicians when you see them! 💙

Welcome to the team ladies!

08/08/2024

These are some of the most common signs and symptoms of an orofacial myofunctional disorder (OMD) that we see! 👄 👅

If you or your child is experiencing any of these symptoms consider speaking to a speech language pathologist that has completed further training in OMDs.

06/25/2024

🛝 You have probably heard the term “summer slide” being talked about recently and we wanted to provide some tips to help prevent the summer slide in relation to speech sounds.

🛝 The summer slide is a phenomenon in which students lose some of the learning they achieved in the previous school year over the summer break. This can include the speech sound work that has been completed with an SLP. Taking a break during the summer is common for many families, particularly those receiving public services.

🙋🏻‍♀️If you are a parent in this situation, here are 4 fun ways to try to incorporate your child’s speech sounds into your summer plans!

🧸 Schedule speech PLAY time: carve out a set amount of time (i.e., 5 minutes) a day to play and focus on incorporating your child’s speech sound.
🏕️ Scavenger hunts: give your child a list of words that include their target phoneme and have them find them around your house, backyard, or park!
🎥Become a vlogger: have your child create mini videos where their goal is to perfect their speech sound. They can then watch their video back and provide self feedback!
🚙 Road trip challenge: many families will be traveling this summer, so while in the car, make it a family competition to find the most items on the road that have your child’s target speech sound!

☀️ Let us know if you try one of these! The key to maintenance of speech sounds is keeping it consistent and FUN!

04/24/2024

HERE WE GROW AGAIN! 🌱

🔹We are hiring a Speech Language Pathologist at our St Catharines location!

🔹We are looking to hire a full time speech language pathologist to join our experienced team!

💙Job Description:
- Full time paediatric speech language pathologist (new grads are welcome to apply - mentorship available)
- Employee position with health care benefits, paid vacation, sick days and personal days
- Working in the areas of speech, language and literacy
- Experience with AAC and Gestalt Language Processing is an asset

✨ if you value excellence, trust, compassion, equity and professionalism like we do, then apply today!

💌 Send your resume to Jennifer.horton@learconm.ca

Lear Communication has offices in St. Catharines & Niagara! We offer Assessment & Treatment of Artic