July is National Picnic Month!

Picnics are a great way to spend time with your family while also working on speech and occupational therapy goals – and your child can be involved in each step of the process! Have your child help you prepare the food by washing fruits and vegetables, collecting plates and utensils, and making sandwiches. You can narrate what you and your child are doing as well as talk about how foods feel, look, and taste. Once the food is ready, your child can help you brainstorm or find other things you need like a blanket and picnic basket. Don’t forget to put on that sunscreen! This is a great opportunity to talk about body parts and spatial concepts (front, back). After you arrive to your picnic destination, you and your child can lay out your blanket and enjoy your picnic! At each step, you can work on speech therapy goals such as following directions, using action words, combining words into phrases, asking and answering questions, asking for help, and labeling everything you and your child see. This is also a great opportunity to work on feeding goals by having your child involved in food preparation and building tolerance of different foods on the picnic blanket or their plate. Because picnics are outside, you can get messy with food with little worry about clean up. Most of all have fun!
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National Great Outdoors Month

June is National Great Outdoors Month! The outdoors are an amazing place to work on your child’s goals for speech, occupational, and physical therapy. Some ideas for celebrating National Great Outdoors Month include swimming in local lakes and ponds, fishing, biking, camping, and hiking. If travel plans are not in your future for June, your backyard is a great place to start celebrating National Great Outdoors Month. If you have a tent already or some sheets and chairs, you can have a backyard camping night. Bring in some s’mores snacks, flashlights, books, and more! Some speech targets and activities might include:
  • Stars: how many you can see, what stars look like, the constellations they make
  • Snack: ingredients, texture (crunchy versus soft/chewy), taste (sweet versus salty), verbs (eat, scoop, chew, chomp)
  • Books: actions with the book (turn the page, look, read, close the book, open the book), what you see in the pictures, how characters feel, ask questions
  • Flashlights: use flashlights to play “I spy” in the dark
  • Nature: talk about temperature outside, wind, texture of the grass, feeling of sheets/pillows/blankets, sounds of the leaves in the wind
  • Songs: sing songs such as “Bear Hunt” while also using motor movements with your hands/arms
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June is National Fruit and Vegetables Month!

Nutrition is key for every child’s growth and development! As parents, it can be difficult to make sure your child gets their daily amount of fruits and vegetables due to busy schedules, picky eaters, cost, and other obstacles.
Some helpful ways to incorporate more fruits and vegetables include:
1. Adding fruits and vegetables to existing favorite foods (adding fruits to cereal, yogurt, pancakes)
2. Eating fruits and vegetables with dips and sauces like peanut butter, yogurt dip, or vegetable dips
3. Try frozen fruit
4. Make smoothies with vegetables mixed in
5. Be the model and eat more fruits and vegetables yourself in front of your child
6. Grate zucchini or carrots into meat mixtures
7. Put cauliflower into mashed potatoes
8. Cut fruits and vegetables into fun shapes
9. Involve children in shopping, preparing, and cooking fruits and vegetables
10. Make popsicles and ice creams in ice cube trays using fruits
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May is Better Speech and Hearing Month!

As speech-language pathologists, we often get the question of when and how parents should address their child’s speech and language skills at home. Finding time to work on speech and language skills at home with children can be difficult and can sound overwhelming. Fortunately, a great time to address speech and language skills is during everyday routines.
Some examples include:
Washing hands: label objects (hands, tap, water), comment (hands are dirty, washing your hands, scrub them up)
Laundry: name objects (clothing items), comment (this is daddy’s, I have daddy’s shirt, wet sock), request (give me pink sock)
Bathtime: label body parts, comment (water is warm, feel clean), request (put arms up)
As always, repeat, repeat, repeat, pause to give your child time to communicate, and have fun!
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May is Better Speech and Hearing Month!

As a speech-language pathologists, we have the pleasure of working with individuals who communicate through all different means including speech, alternative and augmentative communication, gestures, sign language, and more. Alternative and augmentative communication can include both low tech and high tech options. Low tech options can include a core board or flip book while high tech options can include speech generating devices like an iPad with TouchChat. When communicating with an individual who uses AAC, pay attention to the communication partner as opposed to the device, be patient, ask questions, respect screen privacy, and do not completely dominate the conversation. Communication is different for everyone, all modalities of communication are valid and everyone has the right to communicate.

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