Unison Speech-Language Pathology

My little guy, 3 years at the end of January, has a pretty significant speech sound delay. He’s too young to do much in the way of treatment, but I made these today to start to bring awareness to different sounds and attach some specific language/images to them. I posted them in a place where we can all see. Hopefully this will start to lay some groundwork so that, as his attention and willingness to do some little practice activities increases, this awareness is already in place.

At the skating rink. Maybe the most uncomfortable place I’ve tried to read papers? #slplife #slp

This little one has started online kindergarten this week, and her teacher has me so inspired! Here she is drawing summer, after spending 3 whole minutes thinking about how it looked, felt, and sounded outside today. What a rich experience! She was so thoughtful about what she put in her picture and the colours she chose. Art with no set outcome opens the door to some amazing conversations with little people! As you sit with them, leave silence for their words and ideas. And you can try asking open-ended questions to hear what’s going on in those creative brains! Think about starting you questions with how, why or even when or who. If you’re comfortable with it, you could also do your own art alongside them! This makes it even easier to have a balanced conversation with a mix of comments, questions, and silence.

Good ol’ Crocodile Dentist makes a pretty good paperweight, too! #slp #slplife #littlebitwindy

I never put batteries in toys if I can help it. Why not? I want kids to make their own sound effects! All those ‘sshhhhh’s and ‘beep’s and ‘whrrrrrr’s are great for speech development. Plus, less background noise tends to make conversation and connection easier. #slp #slplife #nonoisytoys

In case I ever doubted that kids process their experiences and emotions through play... this week my girls asked to sew masks for their dolls. Since the pandemic started, we’ve also gone through phases of doing story time on zoom, and one of my girls always carries hand sanitizer in her play purse. Sometimes it breaks my heart that this is their experience. But I also know that they can do hard things, including dealing with change.