Late Talker

03/12/2025

02/12/2025

Toddlers 🤪 They will cause absolute chaos and then melt your heart with a hug. Can you relate?! Tag a fellow toddler parent!

02/03/2025

✨ Helping your toddler follow directions can be fun with the right resources!
Check out our latest blog for 5 books and songs that support this important skill.
Read more here: https://wix.to/xSX820d

Learning to follow directions is a critical developmental milestone for toddlers that sets the foundation for their expressive language development. Between 12 and 24 months, children begin understanding and executing simple one-step instructions (e.g. "put your shoes on"), which gradually evolve in...

01/10/2025

📕 Book Spotlight 📖
I just love The Pout-Pout Fish by
Deborah Diesen. This book has so many elements that make for a wonderful shared book reading experience including lots of REPETITION, beautiful illustrations and silly sound effects. Here are some strategies to support your little one's early language skills: 1) Fill-in-the-Blank: Once your child is familiar with the book, pause before finishing one of the sentences and see if they will fill in the blank (this can be with a gesture, a vocalization or a word!). 2) 'Feeling' words: this book is a great opportunity to talk about facial expressions and what they mean e.g. "He is frowning.. he is feeling sad.
He's smiling. He is feeling Happy!" 3) Sound effects: the "blub blub bluuuub" and
"smooch.smooch...smooch" bring an element of silliness to the book. I like to use different voices to entertain my toddler during these parts. Pause and see if your toddler will make these sounds after you! Have you read the Pout-Pout fish with your little one?

12/31/2024

Hard to believe that another year has gone by! This one was a busy one for me juggling another year of PhD work and being a mom to three littles 😮‍💨. Thank you for your support and for following along! Here’s to 2025! 🥳

10/22/2024

🩵 Personal Post 🩵 I’ve been quiet on here over the last several weeks. Getting back into the swing of school with three littles has been challenging (to say the least). I ran my first full Marathon on Sunday 🎉 Having had a couple of days to digest the race, I see so many parallels between the marathon and the journeys we face as parents of kids with speech and language needs. Here are my takeaways: 1) it’s so important to celebrate milestones along the way. I wouldn’t have been able to make it to the finish line without celebrating the small achievements along the way. 5k.. 10k .. 15k.. halfway… The same goes for our little ones: let’s celebrate the little wins, even when it feels like the end goal is far away. 2) Embrace teamwork and collaboration. The support of family and friends meant the world to me. I also made new friends on the course. We are better together. If you feel alone on your journey supporting a little one with communication difficulties, know that there are others out there too. Seek help when you’re concerned and don’t be afraid to rely on others sometimes! 3) Setbacks are inevitable, but it’s all part of the journey. My training plan was far from perfect, but that didn’t stop me from getting to that finish line. As parents, we may experience setbacks when it comes to our children’s progress. Unforeseen hurdles..Circumstances we did not anticipate. So we can focus on the things on that we CAN control and be flexible when it comes to the things we cannot.

Thank you all for continuing to follow along (even when things
get quiet). Your support is so appreciated! ❤️

09/19/2024

On today’s episode of the Summer Speech Sound Series, I review /m/, our bilabial nasal sound, otherwise known as the "yummy sound". This sound is easy to produce and early-developing as it is highly visual and is produced at the very front of the mouth. You can support /m/ by emphasizing this sound in your speech, exaggerating the placement of your lips together and by using the metaphor: the yummy sound! As always, seek an evaluation with a registered SLP if there are concerns with the structure or function of the oral musculature. Is your little one working on /m/? Comment below!
McLeod, S. & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27, 1546-1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

07/30/2024

Did you know that today is the International Day of Friendship? ❤️ This day was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2011 under the notion that friendships between people from all ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds can help to promote peace and forge connections between communities. How are you recognizing this special day today and always? Comment below ❤️☮️

07/24/2024

On today’s episode of the Summer Speech Sound Series, I am discussing /L/: our alveolar liquid sound (otherwise known as the Singing Sound 🎵. This sound is produced just behind the teeth by placing the tongue tip on the alveolar ridge and producing a continuous stream of air over the sides of the tongue. We sometimes see toddlers gliding this sound (by replacing it with /w/ or /y/) as in "wion" for lion or "yeg" for leg) or reducing clusters containing the /L/ sound (e.g. "pane" for plane). Does your little one have trouble with the L sound? Comment below!

McLeod, S. & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27, 1546-1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100