Cozy chats about speech, language and learning
It has been a very different school year! Starting in March 2020 there has been a need to switch from in-person learning to entirely online and now a hybrid model with seeing students in-person and some students online. It has been a year of professional…
Why should we teach prepositions? Prepositions are part of our everyday conversation. They are a big part of what we use when we give directions. Think about some of the early directions that we give our own children. ” Put on your shoes”, “Get in…
Wheels on the Bus Interactive Perhaps there are no other songs that children like more than the ‘Wheels on the Bus’. Many young children love to watch big vehicles. School buses with their bright yellow color, flashing lights, and laughing children draw children into watching…
There are many areas for challenges for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. No two people have the same communicative challenges. Some children with autism spectrum disorder have echolalia. Echolalia At one time the thought was Echolalia was a behavior to eliminate but we have a…
What are pragmatic language skills? Pragmatic language refers to the social language skills that we use in our daily interactions with others. This includes what we say, how we say it, our non-verbal communication (eye contact, facial expressions, body language, etc.) and how appropriate our interactions are in a given situation.
Not all of our communication is verbal. When we examine a child’s speech and language skills we need to include observations and descriptions of how the child is communicating non-verbally. Eye Gaze: A child might look at something they want and then back to the…
The concept of language is a difficult one. According to Bloom and Lahey, language can be defined as “a knowledge of a code for representing ideas about the world through a conventional system of arbitrary signals for communication”. Language is hard to describe but if…
Parent-teacher conferences can bring new referrals as parents wonder if their child has a speech or language disorder that may be impacting their school work. Giving them some information on normal development and ways they can help their child is sometimes all that is needed.…
Kindergarten speech and language screenings are part of the educational requirement. I typically do these the first week of school giving me a chance to meet each of the new students. The purpose of the screening is to pick up any student that might…
Technology is essential in our teaching whether we are working with K-12 or university students. In order for teachers to feel comfortable about incorporating technology into their teaching, we need to during their preservice education make sure we expose them to it. We need to…