Allegra Speech Language Therapy

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Virden, MB
Allegra Speech Language Therapy

Allegra Speech Language Therapy provides assessment and play-based speech and language therapy to children, ages birth through elementary school.

Find the joy of choice and voice.

09/16/2023

Flat tire sounds all. day. long. Kid put in a good shift at work.😉 Playmobil wheels pop on and off easy peasey 🍋 squeezy and and know how to link a speech sound to something that already makes sense🎉🎉🎉 When a sound is new and it’s not yet ready to go in words, drilling over and over can be boring…unless you’re lead mechanic at a tire shop in a town experiencing a Playmobil-vandalizing crime spree.😉 Try this and join my email list for more speech hacks!

08/31/2023

Hey parents…the reason I have a job is NOT because you didn’t do yours. When your kid isn’t talking, when your kid is stuttering, when your kid is having a hard time with sounds, it’s a mismatched strategy thing. You don’t need a new kid; yours is amazing. They don’t need a new parent; theirs is amazing. You both need a new strategy.

Line change. 🏒❤️

04/29/2022

The greatest period of growth in a child’s speech intelligibility (what we understand of what they say) occurs between the ages of two and a half and three and a half, and parents understand more of their child’s speech than the average listener does…so if you, the parent, struggle to understand your child’s speech at times, reach out to a speech language pathologist! When we’re talking about the sounds /l/ and /r/, most kids use /l/ by the time they’re 4 and use /r/ by the time they’re 5. So if you’re still hearing this error pattern by age five, call a speech language pathologist! Share this post with a friend who’s wondering about their child’s speech sounds!

04/11/2022

Do any of these sound familiar? The error pattern of fronting (replacing a sound made at the back of the mouth with a sound made at the front of the mouth) typically disappears by age four.

Here are four times when an SLP dives in to correct fronting:

1. When a child of any age, who’s already enrolled in therapy, is stimulable (ready) to fix it. Green light - if they’re ready, we’re not waiting on a birthday!🚦🥳

2. When a child of any age, who’s already enrolled in therapy, has a name with a /k/ or a /g/. Green light - that makes this pattern VIP 🚦⭐️

3. When a child of any age, who’s already enrolled in therapy, is frustrated and having /k/ and /g/ would make the biggest impact for that child. Green light - we jump at a goal that gives kids the most bang (power) for their buck (work)🚦😖

4. When a child who’s four or older is still fronting. Green light - when /k/ and /g/ don’t emerge on their own, put me in, Coach!🚦4️⃣

Fronting in a child younger than age four doesn’t mean they need speech therapy. But if a COLLECTION of error patterns lands them a spot on a lucky SLP’s caseload, you can expect to see fronting targeted at any age!

04/08/2022

Parenting is an intense gig. It asks a lot of you, and you’re over here serving your 78 395th snack, mummifying while you wait to be “mama”fied. On the edge of your seat for an “I love you.” Here are three ways to get there:

1. Spam your kid
Kids typically say their first word by 12 months of age, meaning they’ve listened to a word for 1 whole year before using it! Knowing that kids need to hear a word many times before using it, spam them with the words that mean the most to them! Enlist your family members/babysitters in celebrating your returns by standing at the window with a chorus of “Mama!”s

2. Routines
Using words really predictably builds language understanding by pairing a word with an action, item, feeling, or activity. It also sets you up for fill-in-the-blank opportunities where you start the phrase and wait for your child to finish it. Similar to peek-a-boo, play an ‘I love you’ game on either side of a bedroom door, opening and closing it.

3. Take heart in what they ARE communicating. There are building blocks that come before talking and reaching, calling for you (“ahh”), protesting someone else, looking at the same thing you are (joint attention), looking from a thing to you to share an experience with you (joint referencing), playing together, smiling, and laughing…those are ALL “I love you” for beginners.❤️

They see you. ❤️ They love you. ❤️

And they need another snack. 😂

04/06/2022

“Well I’m over here just thinking’ like, what type o’ grande you want? ‘Cuz my kid needs a ride to speech and I’m buying coffee.”😂☕️

I’ve long said, kids need a minimum of 3 parents each, at all times. 👊🏻 My family doesn’t run without our village.

Guess who brings kids to speech language appts? Parents, step-parents, grandparents, neighbours, hockey billets, aunties, uncles, and nannies. It’s fantastic.

Keep bringing your village because not only do they keep your family running, but they can help kids carry over skills! The more places, activities, and people with whom your child can demonstrate a skill, the more easily they take that skill for a spin outside the therapy room!

04/05/2022

Did I mention I’m a hybrid? I’m a speech language pathologist and (formerly) a thumb sucker🤷🏼‍♀️

When we talk about pacifiers and thumb sucking, several professionals have skin in the game - dentists and speech language pathologists…but none more than parents, who love kids, who need to soothe and to sleep.

Here’s what I want you to know about thumb sucking: I don’t have a vote. I’ll answer any questions you have and I won’t ask you to make your child stop. I’ll help you find the info you need to make the best decision for your family.

Yep, it can alter teeth alignment.
Yep, it can result in tongue thrust (a motor pattern where the tongue thrusts out past the teeth during a swallow).
Yep, a tongue thrust and an altered bite can affect palate shape and the resting position of a kid’s tongue.
Yep, you can suck your thumb and be a cool human.🙋‍♀️

Like most things in life, thumb sucking isn’t black and white with the effects depending on:

▪️duration (short lived or prolonged?)
▪️frequency (often throughout the day or rarely?)
▪️intensity (light sucking or vigorous?)

So come on in, and don’t feel like you need to pull the fire alarm when your child starts thumb sucking🚨👀🤗

This is your family and I’m here to support YOUR decision making.

Also, did you know, a literature review by Katherine Sanchez et al (2021) indicated “no clear relationship between pacifier use and later speech sound disorders.” Kids need opportunities to use LANGUAGE (words) when they’re not using a pacifier, but there’s no evidence that SPEECH (pronunciation) is impacted by pacifier use. Share this with a friend who needs to hear this!

03/31/2022

You’re gonna wanna slow your roll, because some cool things happen when you do!😉

When you slow your rate of speech, you:

1. Model speech sounds - how they’re made and where they’re used are demonstrated for your child!

2. Provide processing time - you give your child an opportunity to shift their attention, to understand your utterance, and to reply!

3. Support fluency - without giving an (ineffective) direction like “slow down,” you address/remove any time pressure your child may feel to speak quickly so as not to lose their turn. You tell them ‘we have time’ without telling them ‘we have time.’

03/28/2022

There just isn’t anything more important for your child to be doing.

Cheers to Spring Break and a week of opportunities to join them! This week took us to a pool and reminded me of games I’d forgotten…as a kid, who loved saying a word underwater for a friend to guess?!?!?!

03/25/2022

Happy Friday! May the EX and GX be with you?!👊🏻😂

Like this post if you have a collector!

03/24/2022

There’s one of you who catches it all😂

Come forward with a 🙋‍♀️ or a 🙋🏽‍♂️and claim your award!!

Address

250 Nelson Street W
Virden, MB
R0M2C0

Telephone

+12048515165

Website

https://linktr.ee/allegraspeechtherapy

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