TELL ME Speech-Language Pathology

08/28/2025

💫 The words of a father of a son with autism celebrate the brilliance of neurodiversity 💫

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6hgMwZTiIldpP2gigYhqHx?si=cxRUZ1_6SSaAnC7epXScZg

02/19/2025

🗣️ a HUGE shout out to this amazing young woman 👂🏻

11/14/2024

🌲 Really good things that support interactions and learning from someone who L♥️VES to play using games🌲

From the bottom row up, left to right:

📖Always a good book-more recommendations to come in that area
🧸 Toy sets to support imaginative play. Peppa and George get chosen over and over with a play set with a school (thank you, Hartz girls, for sharing), a camper, and playground equipment.

〰️ Suspend is a great game that works in fine motor skills, matching like colors, discussing qualitative concepts, cause/effect, and turn-taking
🔵 Kerplunk is another great activity for fine motor skills, turn-taking, cause/effect. Marbles are involved, so maybe not the best for the itty bitty ones.
🟢🟡🔴 Sorting cups with like objects. I have a set with little bears with color coordinated cups to sort items by color, work on negation, basic prepositions.
👦🏻👧🏻 Melissa and Doug make great sets with a boy or a girl with differing outfit choices that are magnetic. Great for working on pronouns! Mine are JACK Magnetic Imaginative Play and Magnetic Dress-Up Princess Elis.
🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 All About Me Family Counters from Learning Resources is great for sorting, learning about qualitative concepts, and to support imaginative play.
🎣Melissa and Doug make a FANTASTIC fishing set and game. Magnetic fish are “caught” using colors and numbers to direct choices.

⚡️Zingo! As you can see, I have 4 different versions to meet the needs and preferences of my friends. You. Cannot. Go. Wrong. With. This. Choice.
🔠Sequence Letters is a fantastic game addressing phonemic awareness.
👀Spot It! I have two versions, the original and the Holiday version. This works on visual processing and matching. I primarily use it for articulation as you have to say the name of the illustration matched on your card.
♦️Uno. Enough said. Except don’t play with Tasha because she ALWAYS wins!
🔠Phonix Dominoes by Educational Insights is great for kids learning to decode and blend as well as talk about real and nonsense words.
🌮🐱🐐🧀🍕Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza. Just get it. I have two versions, the original and holiday.

⚓️Battleship is great for learning coordinates, perspective-taking, and strategy.
🧠 Brainflakes is fantastic for teaching visual spatial planning and imaginative building-not to mention working on those fine motor skills. Kids can follow directives available online or create on their own.
🧲Magnetic Book by Janod! I have several sets including Learn to Tell Time, Dinosaurs, Racers, and Jobs.
🟩🟥🟦🟧🟫 Genius Square by the Happy Puzzle Company is addictive! This works on learning coordinates, problem solving, visual processing for ages 6+
🧠 Mental Blox for ages 5+ and Mental Blox Jr. for ages 4+ by Learning Resources is fantastic for visual problem solving as well as working on location and prepositions as well as usage of pre- and post-nominal descriptors.
♾️ Gravity Maze by Thinkfun is for ages 8+ and is an incredible game of logic.
❓Guess Who? is great for working on comparing and contrasting, deductive reasoning, and negation.
🐧Pengoloo by Blue Range is a great game for turn taking and color matching and knowledge for little ones 4+

🐻Beware of the Bear is a fun turn-taking game that involves sharing. This is made by Goliath.
🧱Buildzi by TENZI is a favorite of everyone. It can involve visual processing skills, but also can be used in free building with its colorful blocks.
😁 Kidpod makes an incredible set of blocks deplicting various facial expressions and can be used to support social language skills.
🧩 I am a sucker for a puzzle that teaches. Melissa and Doug’s Alphabet Floor Puzzle has stood the test of time.

Providing comprehensive speech, language, and swallowing services to individuals since 2016.

11/12/2024

🌲 Really good things can be found behind this door 🌲

That being said, so does the very real threat of something falling and landing on your head as most of my friends know!

11/07/2024

Really good things. This was gifted to me by my amazing friend, Heidi, at Santa’s Toys in Santa Claus, Indiana. While this might seem like a super basic toy, this is an item that catches everyone’s little eye. I use this to practice articulation or to track how many opportunities a language target is attempted.

AND. If we are tracking positive reinforcement for good choices-add a motoric component with a visual!

🔵🟢🟠🔴🟡

In addition, meaningful counting, color knowledge, and fine motor skills (using the index finger to maneuver the beads from left to right) can be incorporated.

11/07/2024

Really good things. Do you see how LOVED this toy is? It’s because it is so diverse in its use! This has been in my life since 2004 when my son, Will, was born♥️

🟧🟢🛑

Sort by shape. Sort by color. Sort by size. The squares are a little bit trickier-find like sizes and use visual processing skills to fit them together.

Melissa and Doug, again, for the win!

11/07/2024

Really good things…. This doll house. I have purchased it twice it’s so perfect. The furniture that accompanies this is basic and simple affording children the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of categorization by rooms in the house. Function of objects and usage of those can be expanded. Episodic play can be explored. Further modeling of this will be provided. This play set was well-made by Hape.

THE POINT TO TAKE: Notice that this toy is on a table that puts the house at eye level with you and your child to support joint attention. We are much bigger than our little ones, so any kind of manipulation to support engagement at the same level is so, so important.

I expanded play with this by adding families. Make sure that you choose those that have bendable joints-little ones want their toys to sit, not just stand or sleep.

A vehicle for the family to travel is a must! A 🚌, an ✈️, a 🚗. I chose Fischer Price because I can use these with my “family” or with other Little People.

11/06/2024

Really good things…. A toy kitchen. Little ones love to enact actions and routines of their caregivers. No bells or whistles needed, just add pretend play. These items are appropriate for all ages as I’ve seen itty bitty ones who can’t reach the sink all the way to older children taking orders on a pad of paper from others choose this time and time again!

Pictures in Tell Me’s set include a few extras that I love (left to right):
🧹 mop, broom, duster set by Melissa and Doug
👩🏻‍🍳 apron and chef’s hat to support imaginative play
🥕🥦🌽 play food that can be sorted by color to support knowledge of colors as well as sorting like objects
🥣”Cookie Maker Mixer” by Melissa and Doug. This set came with a recipe for making cookies as well as ingredients to encourage following directions
🍞toaster by Melissa and Doug
🔴🟠🔵🟢 nesting cups to introduce size concepts, or to stack, or to use for pretend play with foods. My set, purchased from Amazon, also has numbers on it the bottom with holes corresponding to that number.
🔪🥒 Wooden food with knife and cutting board by Melissa and Doug
🎂 A birthday cake is baking in the oven. This comes with a spatula, candles, and decorations by Melissa and Doug
☕️Coffee pot by Melissa and Doug

10/30/2024

🧠 this was incredibly insightful 🧠

One of the recommendations made was for two weeks, only notice the “good” that your child does. Disregard the behaviors that are not cataclysmic (e.g., not picking up after themselves). Obviously, if it is a deal-breaker (e.g., could cause harm to themselves or others), address this.

🌱 Watch your child bloom 🌱

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard · Episode

10/29/2024

🫶🏻 a big thank you to Lizzi, the speech therapy dog 🫶🏻 Thank you, Waggin’ Main for fluffing my girl up 💈

10/25/2024

🎃 All treats, no tricks at Tell Me 🎃 Thank you all for having fun with me!

10/21/2024

🎃 just a little bit punny 🎃