SpeechTea Blog

  • Language Strategies for Car Rides

    By giving parents specific examples of how to incorporate language into our daily routines, we help them increase their opportunities for language. The best way to do that? Think of chores or necessary parts of life that parents use everyday. Today we'll talk about one that is so underutilized but can increase their child's language skills tremendously with little effort: car rides!
  • Mastering Early Intervention: Effective Parent Coaching Strategies for SLPs

    Hi friends!    If you've been around my social media or a regular in my emails, you'll know that Early Intervention has a special place in my hear...
  • Essential Items for Early Intervention Therapy: Why Books Are a Must-Have in Your Therapy Bag

    Hi friends!  There are some essentials that I always pack in my therapy bag when heading out for Early Intervention therapy sessions: Bubbles, Wi...
  • Incorporating Books into Your Speech Therapy Sessions

    Hi speech friend! Something I always love to do in my own speech therapy sessions when a student is struggling to get engaged is pull out some pic...
  • 3 Mistakes I See EI Providers Make (and what to do instead)

    Hi SLP friends! Today I want to talk about 3 mistakes that I see EI providers make. Now I’ve done early intervention either part time or full time...
  • How To Carryover Early Intervention Strategies In The Home

    In Early Intervention, we often have the benefit of seeing the child in their own, natural environment. We can assess the hurdles they may have to overcome in their homes and we see the areas where we can educate the parent or caregiver. But how can we make sure the therapy techniques we model and educate on are being transferred over on a daily basis?
  • Building Verbal Imitation Skills

    Now that you’ve educated the parents, coached them through strategies, and their child is demonstrating the Pre-Linguistic Skills we addressed in our first two blogs, we can start building on those skills! But where to begin? Think back on how you observe children acquiring language. Does a 1 year old spontaneously go from never making any verbalizations to suddenly responding to verbal routines or saying “hello” and “mama”? Not typically. All of those small little coos and giggles eventually manifest as whole, recognizable words over time and with the right encouragement.

  • Pre-Linguistic Skills: The Foundation of Language

    Pre-linguistic skills are the underrated (and often forgotten!) foundation that allows children to build language, and they must be thoroughly developed. In my last post, I listed them out for you, but let’s look at them further!
  • What To Do When Parents Ask, 'When Will My Child Talk?'

    Now that you have a fresh caseload with eager parents and children waiting for your expertise, the only thing that could bring you down is a parent coming into a session after a few weeks of therapy and asking, “So when exactly will my child begin to actually talk?”. While disappointing to hear, often we forget to educate parents on a crucial part of early intervention therapy: pre-linguistic skills!

  • 5 Tips to Increase Sustained Attention

    Read my 5 top tips on increasing sustained attention in your speech therapy sessions.