For families with a child on the special needs, celebrating Thanksgiving may require some thoughtful preparation to ensure a comfortable and enjoyable experience. Here are some tips to help you prepare for a meaningful holiday celebration.
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A brand new year is days away, and that means we get a chance to make some new resolutions! This year, let’s think about making some special resolutions for speech therapy.
One resolution could be to practice your speech exercises every day. Turn practice into playing a game. The more you practice, the better you will become!
Use the special words your speech therapist teaches you as much as possible. These words help you talk smoothly, and they make you feel super proud!
Work on speaking slowly and clearly. This way, everyone can understand you when you talk.
Make a resolution to tell more stories or help your child tell more stories. Share your adventures, dreams, and funny moments. It’s a fun way to practice talking.
Ask more questions and join in conversations. Questions help you learn new things, and it’s a cool way to make friends!
Reading out loud is like a speech party! Pick your favorite books and read them to friends, family, or even to a pet. It’s great practice!
Sometimes, it might feel tricky, but you might want to promise to be patient. Stay positive and celebrate even the small wins. Every step is a step forward!
We help each other, and this year, thank your speech buddies. We’re in this together!
Be adventurous and try new speech sounds. It’s like a fun challenge to make your speech even more awesome!
At the end of each month, celebrate the progress you’ve made. Maybe treat yourself to something special. Yay for progress!
So there you go, friends! These speech therapy resolutions are yours for the taking. Let’s make it an amazing year of talking, growing, and reaching new speech goals together. Here’s to a fantastic year ahead!
The holiday season is a time of joy, celebration, and togetherness. We’ll explore how to create a sensory-friendly holiday environment by making thoughtful choices in your decorations.
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In a world dominated by large corporations, the importance of supporting small businesses cannot be overlooked. Choosing to shop small is a powerful decision that goes through communities, increasing economic growth, uniqueness, and a stronger sense of connection.
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The calendar doesn’t lie. How is it we are only 10 days away from Valentine’s Day!? With all the attention on sharing love and kindness on that day (as well as every day), we need to take a moment to pause and take into account the skills that bring people closer are really hard to learn.
Some loved ones pick up on social cues and nuances without issue and others require a very clear explanation. As parents, taking the time to frame acceptable and unacceptable behaviors for your family’s values is crucial. Society dictates a number of ‘unwritten’ rules, which makes learning these skills even more difficult for some. Providing a safe environment to discuss and process these ‘unwritten’ rules is important at every age of development. The American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) provide a nice resource for families focused on this area of speech and language.
Your friendly speech-language pathologist would be happy to help you and your family with any questions or concerns you may have related to social communication, social skills, or social pragmatics. Please feel free to give Kelly a call at 440-471-7190 to set up an appointment.
Yours in Speech,
Lakeshore Speech Therapy, LLC.
This message is short and sweet. First and foremost an open apology for seemingly abandoning my post writing these blog message this month. While I wish there was a great explanation, but all I really can say is life definitely gets in the way of the best of intentions!
Second, we at Lakeshore would be remiss if we didn’t take a moment to thank each and everyone of our amazing clients and families. You appreciate your trust in us to provide your loved one’s therapeutic services. We are thrilled to have you all as part of our Lakeshore Family.
Lastly, please take a moment to look around to see all the amazing gifts in your world this holiday season. These gifts aren’t wrapped in festive paper with a bow. These gifts are wrapped with your arms and love. Enjoy these gifts this holiday as we will enjoy ours.
Happy Holidays!
Lakeshore Speech Therapy, LLC
December has arrived and as with every year, it seems as if the calendar speeds up during this festive time. Packing in all the shopping, decorating and taking in the holiday fun can seem overwhelming. The elves at Lakeshore Speech Therapy took a little time to compile a one stop list of events in the Northeast Ohio area that are sensory friendly. These events are not only sensitive to the amount of unnecessary smells, sounds and sights, but often the pace of the event is slowed as well as those ‘working’ the event have been given some information on how to best engage with individuals with special needs.
We hope you are able to take a few moments and enjoy these events with your loved ones.
Yours in Speech,
Lakeshore Speech Therapy, LLC
Dressing-up, costumes, masks and make-up….some would say these are the best parts of Halloween and others would beg differ significantly. While the stores are filled with the newest versions of costumes, consider making one that best ‘fits’ your loved one. One that ‘fits’ her/his physical body, sensory needs, and emotional needs.
Consider costumes that follow the ‘less is more’ theory. Less different pieces of a costume, more focus on making the pieces ‘scream’ exactly the theme or character of the costume.
Consider costumes that do not have tags or items that will distract your loved one to the point where she/he is unable to focus on walking, the party, etc. While adorable and fun, things like fringe, beads, sparkles, and sequins can create an entirely different issue. In this category lives masks and make-up. While both of these items bring a lot to a costume, please consider staying away from these if you know your loved one will be distracted or upset by these additions.
Consider costumes that can go over the layers of possible winter gear that may or may not be part of your evening. Given the weather, being prepared to add or take away a layer on a moments notice will make the difference on the stress level of the evening.
Consider incorporating the phrase “Trick or Treat” on the costume itself if your loved one is non-verbal or might ‘freeze’ . Somehow, someway, make the words part of the costume – add a simple button to the costume with the words ‘Trick or Treat’.
Consider practicing wearing the costume around the house – remember practice makes permanent. This gives your loved one not only the time to become familiar and comfortable with the costume, but will give you time to troubleshoot potential issues (ie: costume too long and possibly a tripping hazard, costume too tight/loose, etc.).
Prior planning with the costume will prevent unneeded stress and potential unexpected behaviors so you can all enjoy a fun evening being together.
Yours in Speech,
Lakeshore Speech Therapy, LLC.
We’ve shared the idea of “practice makes permanent’ in previous posts. This technique is ever important when preparing for an evening of ghosts and goblins and candy acquisition – aka, Halloween. You may think it’s too early and there are so many days to prepare before the end of the month, however we all know how quickly the days fly.
Practicing for an evening of trick-or-treating does not have to look like ‘practice’ or be announced as such. Take a walk on the trick-or-treat route you intend to follow during the day. Make sure to point out various landmarks as well as the changes (different decorations, leaves falling off the trees, etc.). Expand that practice walking the route as it begins to get dark, note the street lights turning on as well as pointing out how the houses may look different, but are the same during the day or night. If your loved one enjoys a good map, make a map of your route and fill in the landmarks together.
As the day draws closer, practice trick or treating from room to room in your house. Close the bathroom door and have your loved on practice trick-or-treating for toothpaste or a toothbrush. While it sounds silly, it’s a safe non-pressured way to practice this exchange as well as gives you a marker for future experiences (“Remember how we did this at home for toothpaste?”). Trick-or-Treating for everyday items (ie: while getting dressed or cleaning a room) may also be the ticket for ‘fun’ buy in for a less enjoyable activity.
Share with neighbors and family the ‘practice makes permanent’ theory and request a practice time that is more similar to the actual event. While your loved one may need a few rounds of practice, it will soon make sense how the exchange of events will occur and the pay-off is well worth the time invested in practicing. Note: the pay-off does not necessarily need to be candy. While candy may be a delight and preferred, practicing these skills can result in the acquisition of other items not necessarily of the sugar food group sort.
A final round of practice making permanent may be partaking in some of indoor or less conventional trick or treat options in the area. Here are a few links that may help in planning these practice sessions:
We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again, practice makes permanent which can significantly decrease unexpected behaviors which creates a less stressful situation for EVERYONE to enjoy!
Yours in Speech,
Lakeshore Speech Therapy, LLC
Easter week -so many preparations, so many family traditions, so much to do. Not to mention, prepping for the egg hunts and the visit from the big bunny.
Practice and review are the best ways to help your loved one be part of any celebration. The chances of you having a lot of extra plastic eggs in probably pretty high. Use these eggs not only to practice participating in an egg hunt, but sneaking in a little speech-language therapy practice as well.
Fill plastic eggs with small objects or pictures that have your loved one’s ‘target’ sound (if you are working on articulation) or are items in different categories (food, toys, animals, etc.). Hide the eggs throughout your home or backyard and work with your loved on to find them. Once the eggs are found, crack them open and practice saying the words and/or separate them into category groups.
Another idea egg-cellent idea is to fill the eggs with items or pictures as shared about, but instead of having your loved one find them freely, give directions as to where the eggs are located. For example, “Find the pink egg under the chair.” or “Find a purple egg and a blue egg behind the couch.” This egg hunt is not working on following directions as well as practicing understanding locational concepts AND everyone is having fun.
Consider practicing the start of the egg hunt. Place 1-4 plastic eggs in full sight – filled or unfilled – and create a ‘starting line’. Instruct your loved one to wait at the start line until you say “Go!”. This will help him/her when wait and anticipate when they are placed in the real high stakes egg hunt. Once they have collected the eggs, repeat the activity adding more eggs each time.
Easter baskets cannot be forgotten either! Help your loved on hold and fill their basket independently. “Pick up” and “put in” are seemingly easy directions, however in the excitement of the egg hunt, a little practice ahead of time may result in less frustration for everyone. Give your loved one a basket to pick up and put toys in when cleaning up for the day. Use socks or books or plastic eggs to practice this skill as well. You may find all along, an Easter basket was all that was needed to get your loved one to clean up those toys without argument!
Enjoy your egg hunts, celebrations and family time together.
Yours in Speech,
Lakeshore Speech Therapy, LLC.
