KIDmunication, LLC

12/21/2022

Thanks to Cari Ebert Seminars for this great reminder!

12/13/2022

We are doing some fun narrative play this week with “Little Truck’s Christmas”. As we read through the story, our kids get to act out the scenes. This is great for sequencing skills, vocabulary, comprehension, early narrative development, and increasing their interest/engagement with books! There are also lots of fun symbolic sounds that we can work into this activity to increase sound/phoneme production and sound combinations (moo, beep, baa).

04/02/2022

April is Autism Acceptance Month. Let’s strive for greater inclusion this month and every month.

12/21/2021

“The best way to support your autistic child at holiday gatherings is to remove any expectations you have about how your child should act during holiday gatherings.” We love these fantastic suggestions from Cari Ebert!

10/23/2021

This would be great for children who are not yet speaking, children who use signs or augmentative alternative communication (AAC) to communicate, children with articulation/apraxia/phonological disorders (difficult to understand), and even children who stutter.

09/27/2021

We picked up some Far Side comics at the book store for Lily today. She has not put them down. Soooo many giggles. Speech therapist dork out moment here: Humor and satire are such an important part of language development—particularly social language development. Kids aren’t getting exposed to it nearly enough. “It is now widely recognized that effective communication requires much more than knowledge of linguistic forms” (Bell, 2007, p. 28). Understanding humor “requires a broad base of linguistic, pragmatic, sociolinguistic, and cultural knowledge” (Shively, 2013, p. 931). As your kids get older, take them to plays. Put them in plays. Expose them to comic strips. Get them cheesy joke books and have laughing contests. Let them watch old-school cartoons chocked full of humor, satire, and sarcasm (eg., Looney Tunes). Laughter is good for their mental health AND language development.

09/18/2021

Thanks to Cari Ebert for sharing this truth!

“Autism is a valid way of being human. My son is not broken and he does not need to be fixed. He is a blessing.

“Aaron needs supports, and modifications, and accommodations in certain aspects of life. But needing help doesn’t mean he should be considered a burden to society. With acceptance, society will see what a blessing he is. “

My son is autistic.

Yes, he has some struggles in life. But so do my neurotypical children. His struggles are different from theirs, of course, and parenting him has been a different experience for me and my husband.

When he was a toddler, I remember feeling overwhelmed because of the uncertainty that comes with the diagnosis.

People often ask me if I wish Aaron didn’t “have” autism. And the answer is no. He is autistic. It is part of his identity. If you take autism away, then who is left? Not my son.

Here’s what you should know. Aaron is so happy. He is the nicest, kindest, most thoughtful person you will ever meet. Why would I want to change that?

Do I wish he didn’t have to struggle so much? I don’t think any parent wants their children to struggle. But, every struggle is a learning experience and helps him build problem solving skills, persistence, and resiliency. So there’s that.

When Aaron was first diagnosed in 2006, autism was considered a tragic diagnosis. As my husband and I have learned, that is not the case.

Autism is a valid way of being human. My son is not broken and he does not need to be fixed. He is a blessing.

Aaron needs supports, and modifications, and accommodations in certain aspects of life. But needing help doesn’t mean he should be considered a burden to society. With acceptance, society will see what a blessing he is.

09/10/2021

Board games are a fun way for families to enhance vocabulary and language skills at home. Check out our tips and recommendations! Download your free copy at: https://www.kidmunicationga.com/resources

09/07/2021

We are so excited to welcome Melissa to our team!

06/21/2021

We put together this fun interactive Itsy Bitsy Spider bin for therapy this week! Kids love water play and this is a great way to work on:
-object/gesture imitation
-increase joint attention
-facilitate turn-taking (My turn! Your turn!)
-functional vocabulary (go, up, down, in, out, more, help, wet)
-symbolic sounds (oh no, wee, woosh, uh-oh, whoa)

For more fun ways to boost your child’s language skills through play, follow us on Instagram and Facebook!

05/04/2021

Working on s-cluster minimal pairs today. We love using the Minimal Pairs Toolkit by . We paired it with some LEGOs to help teach the concept of “sound buddies”. This kiddo is currently sorting minimal pairs into stacks of “sound buddy” and “no sound buddy”. We then use the LEGOS to practice saying the words by adding and removing the “s” sound buddy. This really helps them visualize and hear how adding and removing the “s” sound buddy changes the words!

12/25/2020

Some of us have kiddos that process & experience Christmas differently than we do. Some adults do too! The additional noises, lights, music, decorations, changes in routines, intense emotional excitement and anticipation, extra people, paper/gifts, and unexpected foods can overwhelm & overstimulate kiddos who are prone to sensory overload. Even though my husband and I have learned over the years to reduce the overload for our sweet daughter, she was still in tears by 10am this morning. She adores Christmas but Christmas can be a lot!! I love these tips from . If this is you or your child, it is ok to simplify & tone things down. If it means your kiddo has boxed mac & cheese for Christmas dinner, so be it! If they need some time alone, give them that space, free of judgement.