Picky Eater Mealtime Strategies

By Rebecca Turner, MA, CCC/SLP 

Mealtime can be frustrating when you have a child who is very picky about the foods that they will eat.  I wanted to share with you some strategies or things you can be doing at home to help with some of those Picky Eating behaviors. 

 

1.     Schedule meal and snack times -Be consistent with when you eat and limit snacks or juices.  If your child is snacking all day, they won’t be hungry.

2.     Let your child help plan and prepare meals – Children love to feel like they are contributing, and preparation builds an appetite and teaches responsibility.  Even young kids can help with stirring or adding ingredients.

3.     Make Food Fun – Present food in new and exciting ways: pizza with a face out of pepperoni and vegetables, ants on a log, etc. There are also several fun placemats and plates like the one pictured above, that make eating into a game.

4.     Food Play: If your child is very resistant to try a certain food, allowing them to do some food play, where the goal is interacting with the food, not necessarily eating it, may help.  Using carrot sticks to stir soup or use ketchup to ‘paint’ with the broccoli

5.     Offer them choices. Rather than ask, “Do you want broccoli for dinner?” ask “Which would you like for dinner, broccoli or green beans?”  This allows them to have a little bit of control over the food choice.

6.     Tasting plate:  Offer the same foods for the whole family.  Pass it around and let everyone take one or two things to try. Talk about the colors, shapes, and textures on the plate.  The more kids are exposed and understand, the more willing they will be to try. 

7.     Exposure: Keep exposing them to the foods, don’t just try once and stop.  The more familiar they are with seeing the food, the more willing they are to try it. Also, be sure to set realistic expectations.   They won’t eat ½ cup of peas, but if they eat 5 it is a step in the right direction!

A great resource for more information on healthy balanced meals, recipes, and activities for kids and adults is www.choosemyplate.org

Articulation Practice with Books

By: Brittany Haller, MS, CCC-SLP

Articulation is defined as “the formation of clear and distinct sounds in speech.” When a child substitutes one speech sound for another, such as “wabbit” for “rabbit,” we can target the correct sound production through speech therapy. Speech-Language Pathologists can work on articulation in a lot of different ways, but one of my favorite ways is by using books. Parents can also use “sound-loaded” books to practice target speech sound production at home.

Sound-loaded books are simply books that have a certain sound in them frequently. When reading these books aloud with your child, you can pause and focus on the words that have their target sounds. Using books for speech practice allows you to not only work on articulation, but to also target language, literacy, and even social skills! It can be a fun, interactive way to learn.

You may be wondering where to start with using sound-loaded books for practicing speech at home. If you haven’t already received a copy of your child’s speech therapy goals, I recommended obtaining a copy to familiarize yourself with which sounds they are working on, as well as what level they are working on (single words, phrases, sentences, etc.) Then, find a book that is loaded with your child’s target speech sounds. I recommend the following source: https://www.speechsproutstherapy.com/2015/01/sound-loaded-storybooks-for.html However, if you search “sound-loaded books for articulation” on the internet, you will find many wonderful resources.

After you have familiarized yourself with your child’s goals and have received your books…HAVE FUN! Don’t be afraid to get silly or creative. You can prompt your child to repeat the target words, talk about the pictures, relate the content to your own experiences, and anything else that helps them practice those correct productions. 

Yoga and its Therapeutic Benefits

Yoga and its Therapeutic Benefits

By: Ashley Akers M.S. OTR/L

One of my favorite therapeutic activities is yoga! Why? I love that it is easily accessible to families because no materials are required! Yoga also has a wide range of benefits and works on many skills at the same time. To name just a few, yoga works on:

1.      Overall body strengthening, especially with core and postural muscles

2.      Proprioception or body awareness skills

3.      Improving balance and the vestibular system

4.      Crossing midline or reaching across the body to the opposite side- an important skill for so many daily tasks like writing and dressing

5.      Motor planning skills

6.      Self-regulation! Yoga encourages self-awareness and teaches children tools to manage feeling overwhelmed or stressed such as deep breathing and relaxation techniques

Good poses to start with when first working on yoga with your kiddo:

1.      Tree Pose

2.      Downward Dog

3.      Mountain Pose

4.      Child’s Pose

5.      Cat/Cow Pose

**Cosmic Kids Yoga on Youtube is a great channel to start**

Tools to Grow also offers great resources: https://www.toolstogrowot.com/therapy-resources/gross-motor/pediatric-yoga

Ready, Set, Play!

Ready, Set, Play!

By: Brittany Haller, MS, CCC-SLP

I couldn’t tell you how many times I have had both children and adults tell me “You’re so lucky to be an SLP! All you do is play all day!” I have to admit that they are not wrong. What people may not realize is how important play is for speech and language development. In fact, there are even developmental milestones for different types of play!

The following link will show you more about the wonderful world of play: https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/welcome-to-kid-confidential/full/

You will see a chart that goes over types of play, descriptions of those types, age norms, and several great examples of each type. With so many great benefits....I say “ready, set, play!”

How to Encourage Development of Scissor Skills

How to Encourage Development of Scissor Skills

By: Ashley Akers M.S. OTR/L

Cutting is a foundational activity for children that incorporates so many great skills children need to learn! To name just a few, cutting addresses fine motor strengthening skills, bilateral coordination, sequencing, attention to task, and visual motor skills (eye-hand coordination).

Parents are often surprised when I tell them that cutting skills begin EARLY! Kiddos should be working on snipping paper by age TWO! Yes, 2!  So, how can you encourage the development of scissor skills?

1.      Practice the sequence of opening/closing various items such as tweezers/tongs, squirt bottles, and chip clips.

2.      Tear paper! This is an important prerequisite skill to using scissors.

3.      Always encourage your kiddo to hold their scissors in a “thumbs-up position” i.e your kiddos’ thumb should be in the top, small hole when cutting. (You can make it easier for your kiddo to remember this by placing a sticker on top of the thumb hole).

4.      Before snipping paper, start with snipping Play-Doh!

5.      When kiddos are first learning, using spring-loaded or loop scissors can help decrease their frustration as they provide more assistance and require less strength.

Here is an excellent handout from Super Duper Publications to help you with developing your little one's scissor skills! https://www.superduperinc.com/handouts/pdf/140_Scissor%20skills.pdf

Speech Therapy Treatment Technique: Offering Choices

Speech Therapy Treatment Technique:

Offering Choices

By Rebecca Turner, CCC, SLP

 

Offering choices is a wonderful therapy technique to elicit language.  It can be used with kiddos who are non-verbal where you are targeting pointing to or looking at a specific object, all the way to those kiddos who working on expanding their sentence length to multiple words.  This technique helps to increase communication, but it also gives the child a little bit of control over their environment.  

There are hundreds of opportunities throughout the day to offer choices, it does not have to be solely play based!  If you do choose to utilize toys, some of my favorite ones to use when targeting this skill are puzzles, trains, and Mr. Potato Head, but you can do this with anything that has more than one option. 

1.     You need a way to hold the pieces, either a bag, container or simply putting the pieces in your lap.  This is VERY important because if the child can independently access the toys, it gives them NO reason to communicate. 

2.     You want to make sure child is in front of you so that you can have good eye contact and engagement. You want to get them excited about the toy and this can be done with your facial expressions, voice and possibly demonstrating the toy, especially if it is not a toy the child is familiar with.  You also want to decrease the distractions in the environment, like turning off the tv, putting away other toys, etc so that they can focus on the language being presented.

3.     Once you have set up the interaction, you are going to take 2 of the items.  Using your “Tell me face”, which is eyebrows raised so they know you want them to respond, label the items and move them toward the child.  You want to make sure that you provide that verbal model in clear, simple language.  For example, Do you want “car or train”, “car or train”.

4.     Repeat the options if they do not respond.  The type of response you are targeting varies depending on the level of the child. 

5.     If they grab both items, don’t give them the objects, we want them to make a choice of 1 item, so model the choices again.  Then if they are still grabbing both, model and give one of the items to them.

Making choices is the foundation for establishing the importance of the need to communicate with your child, even if they are just pointing to an object and unable to verbalize! 

Continued Re-opening of Amazing Kidz Therapy

As Amazing Kidz Therapy has begun its reopening process this week. We wanted to share with everyone what the remaining re-opening schedule will look like so that everyone can begin to make more regular appointments.

Week of May 25:

-        AKT will be closed on Monday in observance of Memorial Day

-        Two therapists will be present and seeing clients in the clinic each day. Here is the schedule for this week:

o   Tuesday: Miss Kat – 9am to 5pm; Miss Becky – 11am to 5pm

o   Wednesday: Miss Ashley and Miss Brittany – 9am to 5pm

o   Thursday: Miss Ashley – 9am to 5pm; Miss Becky – 11am to 5pm

o   Friday: Miss Kat and Miss Brittany – 9am to 5pm

-        Therapists will continue to offer Teletherapy sessions throughout the week. This is an option for those that do not feel comfortable returning just yet and/or are unable to come in at the aforementioned times. If you have had a standing Teletherapy time it will remain as scheduled, even if your therapist is in the office on that day.

Starting June 1^st therapists will all resume their regular hours within the clinic. All therapists will continue to offer Teletherapy to clients to prefer that delivery mode.

All of our precautions will remain in place, including:

·        Our staff WILL be wearing face masks. We recognize that this may be scary for some of our children, so we ask that if you are choosing to return to the office that you begin wearing a mask in front of your child to work to desensitizing them.

·        We expect all adults to wear face masks when in the office. We encourage children who are able to tolerate masks to wear them in the office as well. This is for your safety as well as ours.

·        When choosing an in-person appointment, you will be asked the following questions PRIOR to us taking your child back into a treatment room:

a.      Has anyone in your house been confirmed OR suspected to have COVID19 in the past 14 days?

b.      Have you been in contact with anyone with confirmed OR suspected COVID19 in the past 14 days?

c.      Does anyone within your house have a fever or cough at this time?

d.      Have you or anyone in your house traveled in the past 30 days?

·        If your answer to any of the above is Yes, your child will not be seen in person on that day. We ask that with knowing this in advance, if the answer is Yes, that you do not schedule an in-person appointment until you can answer No to all of the above questions.

·        Families are asked NOT to come into the building upon arrival. Parents are to call the office from their car when they have arrived in the parking lot. Once it is time for your child’s appointment, the office will call the parent/caregiver to notify them that they may enter. This is to assist with keeping every family socially distancing.

·        The waiting room will remain closed. If you are not accompanying your child into the treatment session you are asked to wait for them in your vehicle.

·        No more than 1 person is to accompany the child into the clinic. If you have other children with you, we can meet you outside to collect your child and can then bring your child back out to you when their session is complete.

·        All visitors entering the clinic will have their temperatures taken to ensure that no one is entering with an elevated temp.

·        All payments MUST be made over the phone with your credit card PRIOR to beginning your child’s appointment. This can be done when you arrive in the parking lot or ahead of time. We can also run it manually if you have completed a Credit Card Authorization Form.

·        All treatment rooms and equipment/toys are being disinfected after each treatment.

·        A very strict cleaning schedule has been implemented for numerous times throughout the day in all common areas.

Although we plan to be physically reopened at this time with the highest level of precautions being taken, we understand this may not be an option for some of our families. We are continuing to offer virtual services. This is another mode of us to deliver high quality services to your child to prevent regression and continue with their progress. We have seen tremendous success with this delivery method over the past several weeks. ALL group therapy offerings will remain virtual only at this point. We want to inform all clients that as of June 1^st all of our Private Pay services, both in person and Teletherapy visits, will be $60/30 minutes.

Our business office will begin contacting families to begin scheduling appointments for next week as well as for regularly scheduled visits starting in June.

We thank you all very much for your continued patience with us, as we all transition to a new norm within the office. We are working are very hardest to keep the environment as safe as possible for everyone, which will take extra time from our normal daily routine.

We are so very excited to see you all very soon! Stay well.