Praising children for their achievements are often used to increase children’s motivation.

Research shows that ‘process praise’, the type of praise that is related to the child’s effort, motivates children to:

• Work hard
• Learn
• Explore
• Have a healthy outlook on their abilities

We then might question as to “How we should praise young children?” Below are some ideas of how to effectively praise your child into everyday activities:

• Describe your child’s behaviour and effort – use statements that say what you see, like “You used all the blocks to build your tower” or “Your picture has beautiful colours”. Provide statements with specific information that will help him/her to continue the desired behaviour.
• Be mindful when praising after failure or mistakes – Praise such as “Try harder” does not give any information about how your child can improve his or her effort. It may best to use statements that identify your child’s behaviour and effort and then talk about what your child thinks he/she can do to improve their performance. For example, “You worked very carefully on using capital letters and full stops. What’s another way you could make your sentences longer”
• Reduce the amount of praise – our goal is to encourage children to be self-motivated and to embrace challenge. ‘Over praising’ can become a habit – which may make our children dependent on praise. You don’t need to use praise at all when your child is naturally interested and self-motivated in an activity.

By using praise, you’re showing your child to think and talk positively about themselves. You’re helping your child learn how to recognise when he/she does well and to pat himself/herself on the back.

Written by Didem Karademir, Speech Pathologist.

Questions to Ask Your Child After School

Parents may have lots of questions when their child comes home, either on the first few days or throughout the school year.

Does your child often answer with “nothing” or “good” when you ask “What did you do at school” or “How was school”. Below are some tips to talk to your child about school:

• Ask open-ended questions to KEEP the conversation going. Most often, you will get a one-word response if the question can be answered with one word
• Start with factual questions to START the conversation. For example “I know your class size in Art is much bigger this year than last year. What is it like?
• Ask positive questions to give your child the opportunity to express concerns.
• Avoid negative questions as they tend to stop a conversation

Conversation Starters After School

Questions                                        Try these instead

How was school?                                – What’s the biggest difference between this year and last year?

Who did you sit with?                       – Tell me 3 of the children who sat near you

Were the kids in your class nice?   – Who did you enjoy talking to the most?

Was the work hard?                          – What was the best thing your teacher asked you to do?

How was lunch time?                       – Who sat near you at lunch time?

– What was something funny that someone said at lunch time?

– What was a game you played at lunch time?

Keeping communication open between yourself and your child is important, especially when they are in school and away from you for hours each day.

Use the question (s) that work for you and your children. The important thing is to start talking to them on a regular basis

Written by Didem Karademir, Speech Pathologist

Phonological awareness is the ability to manipulate sounds in spoken words. Syllables and words are made of individual sounds called phonemes. For example, the word ‘cat’ has three phonemes: /c/ /a/ /t/.

Some children struggle with perceiving and manipulating sounds. For instance, they may struggle to identify different sounds in words or the number of syllables in words. This may lead to weak reading and spelling skills. They may then get frustrated and perform poorly in school.

The good news is a speech pathologist can help by identifying if a child has phonological awareness difficulties and provide a therapy program to develop these skills.

Here are some strategies speech pathologist use to develop a child’s awareness of sounds:

– Breaking words into their individual sounds

For example, b-u-n (bun), s-t-o-m-p (stomp)

– Clap out the number of syllables in a word or sentence

For example, clap your hands as you say your name ‘Ra-chel’. Now, tell me the number of parts in the name ‘Rachel’

– Deleting, adding or substituting syllables or sounds

For example, say ‘man’ without the /m/ sound, or say ‘doorbell’ now say it again, but don’t say ‘door’

– Producing rhyming words

For example, tell me a word that rhymes with ‘big’ (pig)

Studies have shown that children with strong phonological awareness skills are more likely to have strong reading and writing skills.  So teach your child connections of speech sounds within words using fun activities. If your child seems to be struggling with reading and spelling, they may benefit from phonological awareness instruction.

Written by Tasneem Abdul Samad, Speech Pathologist.

Using sign and gestures can be an important way to develop communication for some children.

The Research:

There is much confusion among parents, teachers and other health professionals about using key word sign with your child. The most common question I come across is “will signing cause my child to stop/delay speech development”. The current research indicates that signing will not stop speech development if the person is going to learn to speak. It may actually support their ability to speak!

What does this all mean?

Signing, or any other form of augmentative communication, can take the pressure of having to ‘talk’ while giving the person a way of communicating, of interacting and becoming social.

How do I teach my child?

The potential for using sign and gesture is unlimited, so where do you start?

• Choose key word signs: You don’t need to sign EVERY word you speak. Instead, select words that are common first words in typically developing children and just sign those when they come up in conversation. For example,
  • Nouns: dog, car, girl, boy, block, milk
  • Social words: no, stop, more, finish, my
  • Verbs: eat, throw, open, help, wash, sit down
  • Family: I (me), mum, dad, brother, sister
• Learn the key word sign: Using flashcards, with a picture of the word and the sign, is an effective approach.

• Use key word approach: Sign the words you have chosen by themselves, when doing the action or showing the object to your child, or when you say the word in a sentence. For example, if the sentence “Lucy, go wash your hands and eat your banana” was said, the words underlined will be signed as you say it.

• Repeat, model and be persistent: Some children may take a while to understand what is being said (and signed) and require consistent repetition and modelling. Children will learn to use sign quicker if they see it around them all the time! Below are some ideas of activities:

PLAY: When playing with the child:

• Sign the key concepts about what you and the child are doing when using toys in play (e.g. teddy bear jump, doll eating, big banana).

Books: When looking at books with the child

• Sign key concepts when completing routines throughout the day such as taking a bath and getting ready for bedtime (e.g. shoes off, in the bed).
• Sign the question word and key information when asking questions (e.g. “Where is the girl?).
• Sign the key words within you or the child’s comments when describing the picture and/or answering a question (e.g. “the girl is under the table”).

         Sing songs/nursery rhymes

• Sign the key words within the song (e.g. star in ‘Twinkle Twinkle’, the different animals in ‘Old Mac Donald’).

Daily Routines: For example:

• When asking for food (e.g. “I want apple please”).
• When asking for a drink (e.g. “Can I have water please?”).
• To go to the toilet (e.g. “I need to go to the toilet“).

Keep doing this and eventually your child may begin to imitate the signs or word on their own!!

Written by Didem Karademir, Speech Pathologist.

Children can communicate with their communication partner by using a combination of sounds, gestures (e.g. pointing, waving “hello” and “bye”) and eye gaze (e.g. looking at you and then what he is ‘talking’ about). Your child may be sending a clear message – just not without words. Build your child’s language skills with some of these handy tips:

Put your child’s message into words
Place your child’s message into words of what you think he/she is trying to tell you. For example, if your child is pointing to their favourite blue cup wanting you to give it to him, say “You want the blue cup”. Keep it short to capture their message!!

Tell your child it’s their turn by pausing during a familiar routine

Encourage your child to “tell” you to continue a routine – allowing them to experience power of communication. Pause during an activity that you and your child are repeating over and over – such as tickles or jumping on a trampoline. For example, after you have jumped on the trampoline a few times, stop jumping and wait – without saying anything – to encourage your child to let you know that they want more jumping.

Use ‘fun’ words

Children enjoy sounds that are fun to ‘hear’ and ‘make’. These words are easy to remember and understand because they are said with lots of intonation. Examples of words include:

Boom! – when something falls

Yummy! Or Mmmm! – during meal times

Pop or uh-oh – during play with bubbles

Bye-bye – when you wave

Cheep-cheep, woof, oink-oink – sounds that animals make

Whee or crash   – when playing with cars or trucks

Offer choices

Hold up two objects and ask “Do you want banana or some apple” showing each object in your hand as you say its name. Your child will use their own way to send you a message and let you know what she wants, including looking at the item they want, reaching, pointing or making a sound while looking at it. As soon as they let you know what they want, give it to her.
Be face to face

When playing with your child, get down at their physical level – so that the two of you are eye to eye. For example, sit facing your child when they are in a high chair, lie down on the floor when she is playing on the floor. When you are face to face, you and your child:

• connect more easily and share the moment
• see and hear each other’s messages better

Ask fewer questions

It can be difficult for your child to answer most questions when they are not yet using words. Try to reduce questions, balancing them with comments (or statements). Use your child’s interest to comment about things in everyday life. For example, comment on what your child’s doing “oh, you are squeezing the play dough” as your child squeezes some play dough. While your child is looking at animal pictures in a book, you could comment “That’s a small mouse”.

Written by Didem Karademir, Speech Pathologist.

Is your child moving out of the stage of life where they are dependent on parents for prompting and assistance for most activities of daily living into a more independent stage of their life? Or is this a goal for your family? Lack of motivation to complete tasks independently is often a barrier that can prevent the smooth transition between these stages of life.

Ask yourself.. Would you go to work if you didn’t get paid? Although lots of us love our jobs, we probably wouldn’t go into work without our weekly pay check coming in. This is the same for some children who do not have the motivation to change or complete a task. The main thing is to remember that they cannot change not caring about what you want them to care about and they can’t change the way they feel.

Some children have difficulties with foresight about consequences of their actions and instead only think about here and now. Implementation of strategies to initiate the motivation for a child to change a behaviour may be beneficial.

Expectations

• May be that your expectations too high?
• Set goals that are realistic, measureable and achievable

Motivators

• Figure out what your child cares about and what motivates them
• Use rewards and incentives as a motivator
• Limit always using consequences to motivate your child
• Find a balance between use of rewards and consequences
• Use these with lots of empathy and understanding

Rewards

• Does not always need to be a physical thing, toy or object
• Might be choosing what’s for dinner, what movie the family will watch all together on the weekend, or what treat to eat while having movie night

Changing the behaviour

• Think about what the ‘good experience’ would look like for you and for your family
• Focus on a specific behaviour that you are wanting to change

For an additional support or direction with strategies get in touch with an occupational therapist. Please feel free to give us a call at De Silva Kids Clinic on 8418 8544 and speak with an occupational therapist about your concerns.

Written by Alannah Santomartino, occupational therapist.

Bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages. There are many benefits of being bilingual including:

• Coming up with solutions to problems
• Good listening skills
• Connecting with others
• Use information in new ways
• Ability to learn new words easily
• Break down words by sounds, such as C-A-T for cat

Below are some myths that you, as a parent, teacher or professional, may have about bilingualism.

Q) My child is bilingual. Will bilingualism cause language delay?

Bilingualism itself does not cause language delay. Bilingual children may say their first words slightly later than monolingual children, but still in the normal range. Bilingual children also develop grammar along the same patterns as children who learn one language.

Q) My child mixes their language when speaking. Are they confused and having trouble becoming bilingual?

When your child uses both languages in a conversation, this is called ‘code switching’ or ‘code mixing’. This is a natural part of being bilingual and should be expected in bilingual children.

Q) Should I stop speaking my home language with my child if I want him/her to speak the dominant language?

Research shows that children can easily learn a second language if they have a strong foundation in their home language. There is no evidence that your child will learn a second language if it is frequently used in the home.

Some parents who are not fluent in the majority language may attempt to speak to their child because they want their child to learn that language. But this can result in conversations and interactions that do not feel natural or comfortable between parent and child.

Q) How can I support a bilingual child?

Some ways to support your child’s bilingualism:

• Do what feels comfortable for you and your family
• Avoid speaking a language with your child if you are not comfortable or fluent in that language
• Provide your child with as many opportunities to speak, hear, play and interact in your home language. Examples include:
  • Read and tell stories
  • Play games, such as bingo or memory
  • Sing songs
  • Dance and play music
  • Speak to family members
  • Organise play time with other children who speak same language
  • Listen to the radio
  • Get creative – incorporate the language into your child’s interests. If your child is interested in cooking, then use a cook book written in your language.

Don’t give up! Some days, your child may not want to speak in your native language. But just hearing you speak your native language will help your child learn it.

Written by Didem Karademir, Speech Pathologist.

Stuttering is characterised by a repetition of sounds, syllables, or words, lengthening of sounds; and tensions in the muscles of the face known as blocks.

Example of types of stutters:

• Repetition of the first sounds in words: C/c/c/come
• Repetition of words: take/ take/ take
• Lengthening of a sound: Sssssssssame

The exact causes of stuttering are unknown. “There are four factors most likely to contribute to the development of stuttering: genetics (approximately 60% of those who stutter have a family member who does also); child development (children with other speech and language problems or developmental delays are most likely to stutter); neurophysiology (recent neurological research has shown that people who stutter process speech and language slightly differently than those who do not stutter); and family dynamics (high expectations and fast- paced lifestyles can contribute to stutter).” (http://www.stutteringhelp.org/faq)

Stuttering often starts in children between 2-4 years of age. Most children will recover from their stutter over time (normal disfluency). About one- quarter of them will develop a stutter. Early intervention is important for diagnosing and implementing strategies to manage the stutter.

It is important to remember that stuttering does not affect the child’s development. If your child has recently started repeating words, try not to draw his/ her attention to it. This could just be a normal dysfluency possibly due to his/her language rapidly developing. However if his/ her stuttering prolongs for more than a few weeks or if it is getting worse, contact a speech pathologist to discuss your concerns.

Written by Tasneem Abdul Samad, Speech Pathologist.

Children with specific interests will find it difficult to engage in purposeful play either alone or with peers. When you and your child play together, the goal is to create repetitive, structured routines in which your child knows that what turns he can take and when to take them. Use R.O.C.K:

Repeat – what you say and do at the beginning, middle and end of the game

Say the name of the game the SAME way every time you play. Even if your child initiates the play, try to label the play by saying something like “Lego” or “Puzzle” or “cars”

Offer Opportunity –for your child to TAKE their turn

Offer your child a turn to keep the game going. Some parents may ask to what kind of turn my child should take? This could be a sound, movement of his body (putting his arms up), a word, eye contact or smile.

Cue – your child to take their turn

Use cues to let your child know that they should take their turn. Natural cues are the best ones – including pause, wait and look expectantly. If your child does not take their turn, you will need to SHOW them what to do (by doing it yourself or physically helping them)

Keep it fun and keep it going

The goal is to get your child to play with you in a back-and-forth interaction that lasts a long time.

Repeat

• Sit face to face with your child
• Blow bubbles and use fun phrase like “blow, blow, blow”
• Repeat the same action with same word

Offer Opportunity

Give your child a turn to keep the game going

• May pull your hand to ask for bubbles
• Say ‘bubbles’
• Say ‘buh’
• Look at you
• Pucker lips and make blowing action
• Smile
• Move towards you

Cue

After blowing bubbles a number of times

• Stop
• Wait
• Look expectant with an animated facial expression

Keep the game going

As soon as your child sends a message that they want to keep playing blow bubbles and repeat the same words. Once they can play the game, change it up.

• Blow big bubbles (say “let’s blow big bubbles”)
• Blow small bubbles (say “lets blow small bubbles”)
• Ask your child to choose (“big or small bubbles”)

Written by Didem Karademir, Speech Pathologist.

Apraxia is a neurological speech difficulty that affects the child’s ability to produce speech intelligibly. Messages from the brain to the muscles are disrupted and children with apraxia usually have difficulty coordinating their tongue, lips and jaw to say words.

Apraxia is not due to weakness or paralysis of muscles needed to produce speech. In most cases, the cause of apraxia is unknown. However, some possible causes include genetic disorders, infection, illness, injury or trauma.

Apraxia is also often called apraxia of speech, verbal dyspraxia, or childhood apraxia of speech (CAS).

Some common characteristics of apraxia:

Speech unintelligibility- A child with apraxia usually has difficulty articulating words, phrases and sentences. Their errors are often inconsistent and unpredictable. Hence, unfamiliar listeners often find it hard to understand them.

Multisyllabic words are harder to pronounce- The child will usually present with more sound errors as the complexity of the word increases

Articulatory groping: The child may often appear to be struggling to coordinate their tongue, lips and lower jaw in order to find the right sound when they are trying to say a word.

Many children with apraxia can become intelligible with intensive speech therapy. If you have concerns that your child may be presenting with signs of apraxia, it is important that you see a speech pathologist.

Written by Tasneem Abdul Samad, Speech Pathologist.