Enjoy Halloween Candy with a Challenge

Enjoy Halloween Candy with a Challenge

By the Kids Place Pediatric Speech Therapists

What’s a parent to do when your child has a three-pound bag of candy after trick-or-treating?  While some families allow candy consumption in moderation, here are some other ideas for limiting your child’s candy intake:

1. Agree in advance on a set number of candies your child will be able to choose from their bag/bucket
2. For older children, agree on a percentage of their total number of candies
3. Agree on special activities/items for which your child may “trade-in” their candy (books, videos, games, etc.)
4. Use candy for arts and crafts

For the candies your children do eat, consider the following ideas to help develop speech and language skills:

1. Use words to describe the qualities of your candy (sweet, sour, crunchy, soft, sticky)
2. Have your child imitate oral-motor movements while enjoying their candy (For example, holding a lollipop, have your child protrude tongue forward then to the right/left to touch it. You can also practice holding the lollipop with lips only)
3. Encourage longer sentences by offering your child choices of candy that differ only by one quality (“Do you want the big square chocolate or the small square chocolate?”)
4. For nonverbal children, model signs for “eat,” “more” or “candy” and encourage imitation before reinforcing.
5. Have your child follow directions incorporating the candy (“First, get the red one, then, get the blue one”).

It is especially important to be aware of choking risks.  According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 15% of choking episodes in children under 14 are caused by hard candy.  An additional 12.8% is caused by other candies.  This amounts to nearly 30% of choking incidents from candy.

Halloween foods that have the highest choking risk include:

• Gum
• Peanuts
• Hard candies
• Jelly beans
• Gum drops
• Gummy bears
• Licorice
• Fruit snacks
• Raisins
• Pumpkin seeds
• Popcorn 
• Caramel
• Candy corn
• Taffy
• Marshmallows

Lastly, be cautious of non-food items that have a high potential risk for choking.  Especially small toys or balls/marbles which a diameter of less than 1 and 1/3 inches.

This Halloween, allow your children to enjoy some of the candies from trick-or-treating, but challenge them to do more than just simply eating the candies! 

Happy Halloween!

Jump-Start Your Baby’s Language Learning with Baby Sign Language

Jump-Start Your Baby’s Language Learning with Baby Sign Language

By Lanni Reisinger, SLP-CFY

Kids Place Pediatric Speech Therapist

Teaching your baby a few basic signs can help jump-start their language learning at an early age.  By 6-months of age, a baby’s ability to understand language is more developed than their ability to speak.  They are great imitators of motor movements by this age, and typically will enjoy making signs and being able to make their intentions clear.  When exposed to signs at home, many babies are able to produce signs before they are able to verbalize true words.  

You can model simple signs for your baby as early as 3-months-old.  Begin by modeling the sign in familiar routines throughout the day until they are able to produce the signs on their own by 9-12 months old.  Choose signs that make sense for your family and will motivate your baby to learn.  

"MORE"

A good place to start is with the sign for MORE.  You make this sign by flattening your hands then bringing your thumbs underneath to make an “O” shape.  Bring your fingertips of both hands together and apart in front of you repeatedly.  Try modeling this sign during highly motivating activities such as mealtimes.

"EAT"

Another early sign you can try is the sign for EAT.  To make this sign, use the same flattened “O” hand shape as in the sign for MORE, but bring the sign close to your mouth (as if you are taking a bite!).  This is another sign to begin modeling during mealtimes.  

"ALL DONE"

A third, simple sign to try is the sign for ALL DONE.  Make this sign by beginning with both hands flattened and facing forward, palms facing up.  Rotate your palms inward while moving your hands apart until both hands are facing down.  You can begin modeling this sign at mealtimes or at the end of an activity (“We are ALL DONE bubbles/milk”).

If your baby appears to be motivated to use signs and is catching on, some other early signs to try include: HELP, PLEASE, MOMMY or DADDY.  Often, when babies do begin talking, the words they sign will be the first they verbalize.

The “Baby Sign Language” website is a great resource and online signing dictionary to explore more signs (http://www.babysignlanguage.com). 

A Newborn Baby's First Year - The Sound Development Parents Can Anticipate

Early Speech Sound Development

By Lanni Reisinger,SLP-CFY

Kids Place Pediatric Speech Therapist

Often times, parents of a newborn will wonder which sounds will first be heard by their baby and how to help produce these sounds.  From the time a newborn baby reaches three months and starts making their first sounds to when a baby is 12 months and forms their first word, parents can expect to hear a wide variety of noises and sounds. 

In this blog, I will address these milestones as well as the activities parents can perform to help their newborn progress.  Please note, these milestones are meant to be generalized.  There is no reason to be alarmed if your baby is slower at hitting certain milestones.  At the end of this article, I will list certain “red flag” milestones that may indicate your newborn needs to be evaluated.

At three months, your baby will begin to make sounds.  The first sounds you can expect to hear are vowel sounds when your baby is cooing and making pleasure sounds (“oo,” “ah,” “uh,” “oh,” “ee”).  At this time, your baby will also begin producing distinctive cries when they are hungry, wet, etc.  They will then begin producing strings of vowels with varying intonation.

When your baby begins babbling at four to six months, the first consonants they are likely to produce are “bilabial” sounds, produced with their lips (p, b, m).  These sounds are learned first because they are easily seen by your baby and fun to make.  This is also around the time you will first see your baby laugh.

At seven months, your baby will produce “reduplicated syllables” - repeating the same sounds over and over again (“babababa”).  Your baby will first produce these sounds in play, without any communicative intent.  You should then begin to notice your baby making sounds to gain attention.  Furthermore, around this time your baby will begin imitating more sounds and “talking” when others are talking.  You can prompt your baby to make sounds playing some basic games in which you take turns making sounds.

Here are some of my favorite games and songs for babies at this age:

• Peek-a-boo (hiding behind hands, blanket, napkin, etc.)
• Patty-cake
• This Little Piggy
• Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
• Row, Row, Row Your Boat
• Old MacDonald

It is also important to read with your baby.  It is not necessary to read every word in a book.  Simply talking about the pictures and pointing to things in the book will help.  You can prompt the production of sounds through making silly and nonsensical sounds while you play (“wee!” or “uh-oh!”).  You can also prompt your baby to imitate environmental sounds like animal sounds (“quack-quack!” and “moo!”) and transportation sounds (“vroom!” or “urch!”).

It is important to remember not only to prompt your baby to imitate your sounds, but imitate your baby’s productions as well.  Face-to-face time with your baby is important and using a “sing-song” tone with lots of rising and falling intonation will help your baby attend better to your sounds.  

By your baby’s first birthday, you can anticipate their first word, typically a word they use often (e.g., “mama,” or “hi”).

As a precaution, if your baby is not making any sounds by six months, or no consonant sounds (p, b, m) by ten months, an evaluation by a doctor is appropriate.  By 15 months, a baby should be saying their first word.  If this is not the case, an evaluation should be sought.