Justine the SLP

01/20/2022

How many of you are cringing at the thought of bringing on the mess during mealtime? Been there! 😬

As hard as it is to let go (for some of us), mealtime with our babes is about more than just eating. See the positives of GETTING MESSY below:

🌟Great sensory play: Mealtime is also a time for our littles to engage in their first sensory play. The tactile input you get from playing in messy textures provides tons of meaningful information to the brain 🧠

🌟Learning to self-feed: The more opportunities our littles have to get food all over their fingers, the more likely they are to realize if they put their fingers in their mouth, they get food!

🌟Prevents tactile defensiveness: When our babes are not exposed to different textures, they can become more sensitive or even aversive to different textures over time.

🌟Makes mealtime fun: Allowing our littles to get messy promotes a more laid back environment and makes this time more positive!

Moral of the story is BRING ON THE MESS 🙌🏼

01/12/2022

You got this mama’s, dada’s and caregivers! Encourage language development with your babies by:

🔶Imitating babies sounds!
🔸Pausing! This is huge! Give your babe enough time to add to the conversation. It’s a two way street, right!?
🔶Modeling new sounds! “Bababa” “Dadada” “Mamama”

Questions?! Ask away!

07/28/2020

07/28/2020

Let’s talk about Joint Attention! 👀 In addition to knowing how to interact face-to-face with people, our littles need to learn to share their attention between people and objects/actions during their interactions.

The hallmark of joint attention is that the kiddo and parent have both focused their attention on the same object or action, and have an awareness of each other’s participation 🙌🏼

In this sweet video, momma and little have both focused their attention on the fact that the LEGO’s have fallen down out of the bag. Hilarious! 😂 The kiddo looks down at the LEGO’s that have dropped and then looks at his mom in delight! They are both aware of the action that has just taken place!

Joint attention is such an important pre-linguistic skill! According to Carpenter et al., 1998, there is a strong link between joint engagement and communication development. In fact, the amount of time infants spend in joint engagement with their mothers predicts the infants' early gestures and communication 💛💛💛

07/25/2020

Let’s talk about eye contact! 👀 When parents’ and kiddos’ eyes meet something very special happens – an emotional connection is established 💛

Eye gaze is one of the first milestones littles achieve, and it is so fun when this happens! It lets parents know that their little one finally “sees” them and that they’re important and recognized!

Eye contact is another essential prelinguistic skill in the development of language and vocabulary. When both parent and little are looking at the same object and the parent names or describes the object, the connection between a sight and a word is established!

07/21/2020

Baby SEE baby DO!! Let’s talk about imitation. Imitation means that a kiddo copies what they see and hear other people do and say. This “imitation” process is how all of us learn just about ANYTHING including LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT! 🗣🙌🏼

Research has shown that imitation is the single most important predictor of later language development. According to Zambrana et al., 2013, a child’s imitation skills at 18 months can most accurately predict his or her language development at 36 months more than any other factor. THUS, targeting imitation skills should be a TOP priority for any little who is language delayed!

So how can we get our littles to start imitating? Easy - imitate THEM! In this video clip, we see this sweet mama copy her little by smiling, laughing and blowing raspberries. She is letting lose, being silly and having FUN 🎉 - and really that is the most important thing! By imitating her baby, this mom is connecting with her little and creating meaningful interactions. Take note - she PAUSES to give her baby a chance to imitate her and participate in the social interaction. By pausing - her babe has the opportunity to respond and create this beautiful back and forth interaction!

So what’s our take-away here!? If your little makes a sound, make the same sound. If they bang on the wall, you bang on the wall! After you imitate your kiddo a few times, try something new and wait for them to imitate you. ❤️