Shel's Speech By The Beach

18/05/2024

Happy Speech-Language Pathologist Day to my fellow SLPs! 👏 Love what I do! ♥️🗣️💭

Now Accepting:
Aetna insurance
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& Private Pay

02/04/2024

12/03/2024

Noise-Induced Hearing Loss, or NIHL, happens when you listen to loud sounds. These sounds can last a long time, like listening to a concert, or they can be short, like from gunfire. Three factors put you at risk for NIHL:

How loud the noise is
How close you are to the noise
How long you hear the noise

Wear hearing protection when necessary to avoid permanent damage. 👂🏼

10/01/2024

As an SLP who worked over 8 years in the school system, I am quite familiar with IEPs in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

Following testing, with parent’s permission, a child may receive an IEP at school. This allows customized accommodations in the classroom, accommodations during state testing, and support services (ex. reading support, math support, speech therapy, vocational therapy, physical therapy) based on your child’s needs.

Annual goals are set and there is a meeting every year to discuss progress and continued needs, adjusting the goals. As a parent, you have the right to request a meeting anytime prior to the one year date.

It is important to attend, whether in person or virtually. You may bring someone with you whether it’s an advocate, family, or friend.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and advocate for your child. Collaboration with school staff is key to your child’s academic success.

26/12/2023

Multilingual children develop language skills just as other children do. You will not confuse your child, cause or worsen speech or language problems, or slow down their learning by using your languages with your child.

Basic guidelines:
Start early. Begin using your languages with your child as early as possible; the more input the better. Most multilingual children use their first words by the time they are 1 year old.
Be supportive. Support your child by creating opportunities to use their languages daily.
Value practice over perfection. Encourage your child to use their languages, even if they make some mistakes. Don’t worry about errors. You may notice that your child may mix grammar rules or even use words from different languages in the same sentence.

Benefits of Using More Than One Language:
The number of people in the US who use more than one language is growing. Being multilingual has advantages, including being better at learning new words and languages, putting words into categories, understanding math concepts, coming up with solutions to problems, listening to and connecting with users of your languages, understanding others’ perspectives, shifting and focusing attention to important details, and adding value to a modern—and diverse—workforce.

Ways to Help Your Child Become Multilingual:
Books. Read with your child, and talk about characters, events, and personal experiences.
Music. Listening to music and singing is a great way to introduce another language to your child. You can talk about song lyrics and incorp music into play.
TV and videos. Children’s programs teach children about numbers, letters, colors, and simple words.
Language-learning programs. Children can learn other languages at camps, in clubs, or in dual-language programs. These options give children the chance to use their languages with other children.

12/12/2023

When children are learning a lot of words or new speech sounds, you may notice some of the typical disfluencies listed in the post. This is normal and is not considered stuttering.

When your child stutters, you may also notice other behaviors like head nodding or eye blinking. Sometimes people who stutter use these behaviors to stop or keep from stuttering. They may also avoid using certain words or use different words to keep from stuttering. Feelings and attitudes can affect stuttering.

Causes of stuttering:

Stuttering usually starts between 2 and 6 years of age. Many children go through normal periods of disfluency lasting less than 6 months. Stuttering lasting longer than this may need treatment.

There is no one cause of stuttering. Possible causes include the following:

•Family history. Many people who stutter have a family member who also stutters.
•Brain differences. People who stutter may have small differences in the way their brain works during speech.

You cannot always know which children will continue to stutter, but the following factors may place them at risk:

•Gender. Boys are more likely to continue stuttering than girls. Data are currently limited to individuals who identify as male or female.
•Age when stuttering began. Children who start stuttering at age 3½ or later are more likely to continue stuttering.
•Family recovery patterns. Children with family members who continued to stutter are also more likely to continue.

If you think your child stutters, get help from an SLP as early as possible. Early help can reduce the chances that your child will keep stuttering.

05/12/2023

As parents and clinicians, it's crucial for us to understand how ear tubes can help improve children's hearing and prevent future complications. Frequent ear infections and chronic fluid in the ear can temporarily reduce hearing and, therefore, negatively impact speech and language development.

From my clinical experience alone, I have witnessed the immense improvements in speech sound development and language skills following insertion of ear tubes. Don’t hesitate to ask your pediatrician if tubes are right for your child.

21/11/2023

Family participation plays a key role in increasing children’s success with communication.

14/11/2023

Here are some tips to help families support their child's feeding and swallowing development:

•Have your child try a new food many times—this gives them the chance to decide if they like it.

•Serve a variety of foods to your child. Don't get discouraged if they don't like it the first few times.

•Cook with your child. Share new smells and tastes. Cooking together can make tasting new foods exciting when your child knows that they helped to prepare it!

•Children learn through play, so expose them to new foods by making meals exciting or playful. For example, have a picnic lunch outside, or finger paint with applesauce.

•Build on what your child already likes to eat by taking food one step further. For example, if they like chicken nuggets, try a chicken patty.

•Ask your child to try new foods, but don't bribe or push your child too much. Pushing can cause your child to have negative associations with the act of eating—or with food in general.

•Help your child learn their hunger and fullness cues. This creates healthy eating habits and a long-term positive relationship with food.

•You know your child best, so don't wait to get help if your child is having trouble breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, or eating solid foods. Getting help early can prevent problems with eating and can foster a healthy relationship with food for you and your child.

Asha.org

07/11/2023

Baby sign is a powerful technique that parents can use to communicate and bond with their baby before the baby learns to talk. Introducing baby sign is simple, and it's not just for babies. Even toddlers who have already begun to use spoken words can benefit from signing.

Incorporating sign language simply acts as a stepping stone until your child feels ready to verbally produce words. As you sign with your child, it is important to also speak the words that you are signing - so your child hears that same word over and over, paired with the same sign.

You may be thinking, "but I don't know sign language", and that's totally okay. Many speech-language pathologists don't know sign language either, but they start with the most useful, functional signs to communicate wants/needs (e.g., "milk", "more", "open", "I want", "help",
"eat"). Just learning and incorporating these handful of signs can be extremely helpful to reduce overall frustrations. You can even just begin with one sign, such as "more".

It's never too early to begin signing to your baby.
The earlier you begin to show them the signs, the sooner they will understand. On average, however, babies aren't developmentally ready to put meaning to sounds, words, and signs until about six months of age. That's why we typically recommend 6-8 months old as a great time to start using baby sign language consistently.

When will your baby start to sign back? Usually around 9-12 months, when most babies are physically able to make intentional gestures and controlled hand movements. But every child begins at their own pace, many after their first birthdays.

31/10/2023

Prek and early elementary: Playing simple games such as Sneaky Snacky Squirrel, Memory, Hi Ho Cherry-o, Go Fish, & Uno can provide great opportunities to practice turn taking skills, following directions, asking and answering questions, using full sentences, understanding concepts such as more/less and next/first/last, and many more skills!

Upper elementary and older students: Many board and card games work on valuable language skills like turn taking, using complete sentences, describing, comparing/contrasting, perspective taking, & more. Games such as Scattergories, Apples to Apples, Bubble Talk, Guess Who, Clue, Uno, Catch Phrase, and Catan Junior are all good choices!

24/10/2023

You boost your toddler’s brain, communication, and
social/emotional development through everyday interactions: talking, reading, and playing together.
Setting healthy screen time boundaries allows more time for these important activities.