Speech First, LLC

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Philadelphia, PA
Speech First, LLC

📍 Wayne, PA: Private in-home and in-school speech therapy. Providing services to children and families throughout the Main Line and beyond for over 16 years.

Speech First, LLC is owned and operated by Lindsay Petersen, a Pennsylvania State licensed and nationally certified Speech-Language Pathologist who provides private, in-home speech therapy to the greater Philadelphia region. Lindsay has extensive experience assessing and treating clients with receptive/expressive language impairments, articulation and phonological disorders, fluency disorders, feeding delays and disorders, and communication delays and disorders associated with developmental delays, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Childhood Apraxia of Speech, hearing loss, and neurological impairments. She is trained in the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), American Sign Language, and Auditory Verbal Therapy strategies and techniques. Lindsay believes in a multidisciplinary team approach to therapy and thus encourages collaboration with parents, caregivers, teachers and other professionals to provide the most optimal and successful treatment plan for her clients. Her practice is based on providing the highest quality of service to her clients and their families while working to achieve their speech and language goals.

11/14/2025

If I had to choose one tool that consistently supports children’s (of all ages) communication skills… it would be BOOKS 📚 They’re simple, accessible, and incredibly powerful.

BUT, not all kids love books right away — and that’s okay! Here are some quick tips to make reading more fun and low-pressure:

✨Choose books about their interests.
✨ Keep it short — even 1–2 minutes makes a difference. You can build upon this time.
✨ Try interactive books (flaps, textures, sounds)
✨ Make it playful with silly voices and motions; act out the story!
✨ Let your child turn pages or pick the book.
✨ Try reading in new places — bath, outside, snack time, parked in the school carline.
✨ Use pictures of your child - if you have the means, print out some pictures of your child and glue them on paper. Create a story based on the pictures and it will be an instant hit - kids LOVE looking at pictures of themselves! I use this trick in speech therapy often when working on verbs (i.e. action words)!

11/11/2025

There are a few common myths I hear often when it comes to speech and language development. This is a biggie!

The reality is: boys and girls follow the same developmental track and milestones. For any child, boy or girl, intervention works best when started early! Waiting it out because of a myth can delay support that makes a big difference later on.

If you have questions about your child’s speech and language development, the best resource to utilize is a speech-language pathologist 🩵

11/04/2025

The ✨BEST✨part of this job.

10/27/2025

1️⃣ Targets the True Breakdown
Every child’s speech sound errors come from different underlying challenges — like motor planning, phonological patterns, or articulation placement. Using the right approach ensures we’re treating the WHY, not just the what.

2️⃣ Improves Generalization
When therapy aligns with the type of speech sound disorder, kids don’t just learn a sound — they learn how to use it naturally across words, sentences, and conversation.

3️⃣ Builds Lasting Speech Clarity
An evidence-based, well-matched approach helps children develop speech skills that stick — reducing frustration and boosting confidence in every conversation!

This is why personalized plans are so important. Effective therapy isn’t one-size-fits-all—it’s child-by-child, sound-by-sound, step-by-step! 👟👟

10/22/2025

🌈 Did you know play develops in stages? I recently had a parent come to me concerned that her almost 3 year old tends to play NEXT to his peers instead of WITH them.

Here’s how play skills grow over time:

👶 Solitary Play (0–2 yrs)
Playing alone — exploring toys, textures, and sounds. A stage of discovery!

👧 Parallel Play (2–3 yrs)
Playing next to another child, but not yet together. Early social awareness starts here.

👦 Associative Play (3–4 yrs)
Kids begin to share toys and ideas, but the play isn’t organized toward a common goal.

👫 Cooperative Play (4–5 yrs+)
Now we’re working together! Children plan, take roles, and collaborate — a huge step for language, social, and emotional growth.

How else can we help? Ensuring your child has the language and communication skills needed to engage to socialize and engage with their peers. Questions about your child’s development? Let’s chat! Send me a DM and we can set up a free consultation! 😊

10/14/2025

As children are developing and growing, so are their speech/articulation skills. Many error patterns or mispronunciations we hear between 1-3 years old will correct on their own by 3-4 years old. However, there are some error patterns that are not developmental in nature and therefore unlikely to correct on their own.

This is one of them: “initial consonant deletion.” It occurs when a child omits the initial consonant sound from most words (e.g. hot = “ot,” bus = “us,” puppy = “uppy”) and tends to have a significant impact on their ability to be understood, even with context.

In most cases, speech therapy is warranted to address this and it is ✨KEY✨ to choose the most appropriate intervention approach. For this little guy, this error pattern of omitting initial consonants was fully corrected within 5 months of weekly sessions! The last two months were spent working on a couple additional sounds. There was also another factor that contributed to his progress - mom and dad who worked with him in between sessions! 😊

10/07/2025

✨ Why PLAY Leads the Way ✨

In child-led speech therapy, the therapist follows your child’s interests — whether that’s dinosaurs, building towers, or dancing around to Taylor Swift’s new album (which happened in my session yesterday!) — and turns those moments of joy into powerful opportunities for communication.

Whether 2 years old or 10, kids tend to be more engaged, more confident, and more likely to try and use new skills when they feel in control.

Because when it comes down to it: connection creates communication. ❤️

09/29/2025

We can feel a lot of pressure as parents to do ALL the fun “fall” things. But remember, some of the best (and easiest) ways to provide your child with a rich language and learning activity is including them in routines and even chores! Kids tend to LOVE being helpers. Yes, it may be a bit messier and take longer to complete. BUT the benefits are huge. These types of activities not only promote confidence and parent bonding but also have many language building opportunities including:

🍁 Expanding vocabulary
🍁 Understanding object function
🍁 Sequencing steps
🍁 Following directions
🍁 Understanding cause/effect
🍁 Teaching positional words (e.g. in, on, under, next to)…. And more!

09/24/2025

A “lateral lisp” occurs when air escapes over the sides of the tongue and into the cheeks instead of down the center and out of the front of the mouth. It is caused by incorrect tongue positioning which results in wet or slushy sounding speech. It typically affects airflow sounds such as S, Z, SH, and CH.

It can be subtle but it’s important to know that lateral lisps are not developmental in nature, meaning a child is unlikely to grow out of it. How do we fix it? The best course of action is speech therapy! There are several different types of strategies/interventions that work well to remediate lateral lisps which will typically be determined during a child’s initial session(s).

It is all about establishing a new motor plan for producing those airflow sounds, so the sooner we can get started, the better! 🗣️

09/11/2025

Forever grateful for being part of each family’s journey and experience. Thank YOU for trusting me with one of the most important parts of your life — your child’s communication. 💛

09/02/2025

And… we’re back to school! Our kids, whether in part-time preschool or full-time Kindergarten and above, will be spending a big part of their days with their teachers. Teachers are amazing professionals when it comes to nurturing development, including speech and language development! If you have concerns about your child’s communication or just want to check in, here are some thoughtful questions to start the conversation:

🍎 1. Have you noticed any difficulty with my child being understood by peers or adults?
🍎 2. Does my child talk at school or tend to stay quiet?
🍎 3. How do they follow directions or respond to questions throughout their day?
🍎 4. Do they ever seem frustrated when trying to express themselves?
🍎 5. If or when my child is not easily understood, how do they handle it?
🍎 6. How does my child play/engage/socialize with their peers?

💬 Teachers are great observers — and partners! Don’t be afraid to ask questions. The earlier we catch delays, the better we can support our kids, and the better the outcomes!

08/18/2025

Did you know?… You don’t always have to stick to the script when reading books with your little one! While many children’s books are written to rhyme and be repetitious (which is great for language development!), sometimes NOVELTY is what captures a child’s attention and engagement. Introducing new or unexpected elements can also improve retention of vocabulary and information! I love wordless picture books for this reason. Some of my favorites include: “Goodnight Gorilla,” “The Snowman,” “Good Dog, Carl,” and “A Ball for Daisy.” 📚

Address

Philadelphia, PA

Website

http://www.speech-first.com/

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