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Speech Therapy with Meredith Brown

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Lee County, TX
Speech Therapy with Meredith Brown

Pediatric speech therapy centered around parent education and joyful connection. I am currently providing in home services for private pay only.

I've been a pediatric SLP for over ten years and my passion is fostering communication through connection and joy. I love working with families in their natural environment and providing parent coaching for optimum carryover of skills. Please message me for more information or to schedule a complimentary consultation.

06/01/2025

Happy Sunday! I’ve been on maternity leave but am now getting back into my work groove. I have some availability for a few more private clients, please message me to schedule a speech therapy visit or with any questions you may have about my services.

07/29/2023

🧸 Pretend Play 🧸

What a fun skill to watch your little one develop! Pretend play skills develop around 1-2 years of age and it is so exciting to observe for many reasons:

🔅 it builds imitation and sequencing abilities
🔅 it fosters creativity, flexibility, perspective taking and role play
🔅 it supports social and emotional development and problem solving skills
🔅 and of course, it builds receptive and expressive language development 😀

Little ones love responsibility, so provide your child with opportunities throughout the day to get involved in daily chores. Talk about what you’re doing and explain the “why” to help your child build connections. Throw in some simple directions to help build understanding (did you notice the new direction I gave my little guy during this diaper changing activity? Love to see those wheels turning!).

Can you think of a daily routine you can involve your child with? Start with one they seem most interested in- find that shared joy and watch them grow 🌸

07/10/2023

🔄 Turn Taking 🔄

Taking turns and sharing can be tricky, especially when you’re a young child with a 🧠 developing brain 🧠 and limited understanding of perspective taking.

Toddlers are just starting to learn about their OWN emotions, so considering a play partner’s emotions is next level challenging. Add in a limited perception of time and an “all or nothing” mindset, it makes sense why some little ones prefer to play solo.

When more children are involved in a play experience, the more unpredictable it becomes.

🚫 Less predictability = less control. 🚫

We all know toddlers (and humans in general) love being in control. So, that’s why I recommend first introducing turn taking with an adult, and then with a familiar child with adult support.

I personally don’t advocate for “forced sharing”. I’d rather facilitate turn taking in a less threatening and more playful and motivating activity. Some of my favorite turn taking activities to start with include:

🔆 Gross motor or sensory experiences that don’t have a lot of items involved to avoid possessiveness 🔆
🔹 taking turns spinning, bouncing, or crashing with an adult
🔹 taking turns blowing and popping bubbles
🔹 taking turns stacking blocks while the adult facilitates giving the blocks out
🔹 taking turns going up/down slide
🔹 taking turns while rolling/throwing a ball to catch or crash a tower
🔹 taking turns pushing and riding in a car, bike or box

🔆 Other tips to ease into turn taking 🔆
↪️ assign roles related to the job, such as one child being the “blower” of bubbles while the other child is the “popper”
↪️ offer lots of choices during interactions to help the child feel more in control but also defining clear options with less confusion, such as “How many jumps this turn? Four or five?”
↪️ if a child gets 🤜snatchy🤛 with a toy, I encourage “asking hands” by modeling an open palm and verbally requesting
↪️ if a child is resistant to sharing an item for turn taking, I like to find the same item and play alongside them, modeling taking turns with a sibiling or peer to entice child to join and also providing a model of turn taking skills

Whew! 😅 It’s a lot and that’s why most children need adult support and models to learn these skills. YOU are your child’s biggest teacher and the best lessons are learned through 🎈PLAY 🎈. So, get on the floor and find your 💫 inner child 💫.

07/01/2023

🎤 Vocal Play 🎤

Many parents believe a speech therapist just works on talking- they want their child to use words! Children don’t just ”start” talking. There are many foundational skills that are necessary before this happens.

🔆 Does your child have shared attention and engage for good bits of time?
🔆 Is your child able to imitate play actions, gross motor actions, oral motor actions, and/or simple sounds?
🔆 Is your child looking towards items/people when they are named and following simple directions?
🔆 Is your child using their voice intentionally, such as to gain your attention, attempt to label/comment (such as vocalizing when showing you a toy) or engage in back and forth interactions?

While in this video, it looks like my son is just having fun and being silly (which he is 😍), but many skills are being practiced, including intentionally turning on his voice for long periods of time and varying his pitch, rounding, protruding and bringing his lips together for the vocal play to happen and following simple directions with a gesture.

Other vocal and oral motor play ideas:
🔹 clicking your tongue while walking a play animals
🔹 grunting as you pull on something to get it off or on (for example, playfully and dramatically pulling on your child’s sock/shoe with a grunt)
🔹puckering your lips for a kiss
🔹 rounding lips to blow bubbles or on hot food
🔹 pretending to sneeze or cough
🔹 playfully “eating” your child’s toes with a “nom nom” noise

Can you think of any other activities you may be already doing with your child that is improving their imitation and oral motor skills? Can you think of a routine activity or a highly preferred activity that you could start to incorporate and model some of these skills?

Remember, your child isn’t just going to start following a direction (“Hey, Suzie, click your tongue!”), YOU are the teacher. Model, model, model and be PLAYFUL! 🙃

06/16/2023

🎈People Play! 🫧

Parents often ask me, “What are the best toys for my child?”

For young children, the best toys to foster language development and engagement are “people toys”, which are toys that require your assistance to “work”, making you an ACTIVE participant in the play. Usually these toys do not involve batteries. These toys should be FUN and MOTIVATING for you child, as these are key components to encourage your child to stick with the activity and make requests.

My favorite phrase to teach parents when using these activities?

🚦 “Ready…set……….GO!”🚦

I love using this phrase (with lots of affect!) because it makes play more predictable, it cues your child that something fun is about to happen again, it facilitates wait time and anticipation and gives your child an opportunity to request. I’ve seen a handful of clients say “go!” as their first word within one or two sessions.

These pictures show some of my all time favorite toys to use in therapy, specifically for children that require more supports to engage for longer periods of time. If you want more details on how I use these toys to foster language, back and forth interactions and problem solving, comment and I will happily elaborate! ❤️

Let’s not forget about body play! Tickling, deep pressure/squeezes, spinning, lifting and swinging are all fun filled and action packed play activities you can do almost anywhere—because it only involves you and your child! YOU can be your child’s favorite “toy”, which in turn, leads to connection, affection and…LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT 🗣️

06/08/2023

One…two…three…four…FIVE.

Five opportunities I provided for my little guy, Waylon, to say new word “pterodactyl” before he imitated. Sometimes he imitates, sometimes he doesn’t. That’s not the most important thing, the essential thing here is providing OPPORTUNITY.

The strategy here is ⭐️ Prompt and Wait ⭐️ How many times? That’s individual for your child and you as a parent know your child best. The two signals I tell parents to look out for, if you challenged too much (i.e. Too many prompts, too much wait time) is:

☝️your child starting to melt down (which is different than fussing but that’s for a different post)

✌️your child abandoning activity

Did you notice when I finally pushed the button for the book to make the dinosaur noise (reinforcer)? It was when I noticed Waylon starting to look around, get distracted…I was about to lose him! So, I drew him back in with the activation of the dinosaur ROAR and then he imitated! And the next one, he imitated even quicker!

So, the question I want to ask my fellow parents of young children is…how many times a day are you providing opportunities for your child to verbally request? Think about activities that are routine and 🔑 HIGHLY MOTIVATING 🔑, such as opening a snack bag, helping put on shoes, fitting a puzzle piece in, getting an item out of reach. The list goes on and on.

🚫 This is not about compliance. 🚫

This is about it teaching your child the purpose of communication and providing opportunity in joyful, meaningful moments throughout your day.

⭐️ Prompt and Wait. ⭐️

Did you notice how I prompted Waylon? I will talk more about this and other great “people toys”, such as this dinosaur book, to foster more motivating moments for your child to use their communication skills in future posts ❤️ feel free to comment or ask questions below.

06/06/2023

Hello! Welcome to my new speech therapy page, a place where I hope to foster education, provide practical tools and a resource for families. I will be posting videos and information weekly about strategies and information regarding your child's speech, language and play skills. So, I want to know, what are your questions?? Please send them my way! Feel free to comment below or direct message me and your inquiry may be the one selected for my weekly post. Knowledge is power and I am grateful I get to spread my passion and education with you. Cheers to communication and connection, families!

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Providing In Home Pediatric Speech Therapy Services For Bastrop, Fayette And Lee County
Lee County, TX

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+12547604043

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