Sofía Zelou

Speech and Language Therapy in Early Years helps children who may need some extra support in communicating their needs or being understood.

Often, children will start Speech Therapy between the ages of one and three years old. The majority of speech issues develop when your child is between eighteen months and two years old, but it’s always a good idea to contact a speech therapist sooner than that if you have any concerns.

At the meantime, early years means – from pre-birth until starting school – where in terms of a child’s development, is a critical period as children form bonds with their parents, develop language skills and other cognitive functions, and establish behavioral patterns.

Some examples of Speech and Language intervention are the following:

• Children with language and communication difficulties including autism spectrum disorder and Developmental Language Disorder up to reception age (under 5 years).
• Children with deafness (moderate to severe) up to reception age (under 5 years).
• Children with stammering difficulties.
• Children with speech sound difficulties.
• Children with SLI (Speech Language Impairment).

Speech and Language therapy is more than important for the effective and best intervention and support for the child and their parents.

Speech and Language therapists are also responsible to coordinate with schools, other therapists and professionals and to guide the parents efficiently with specific routines, programs and special and personalized plans.

In case you think there´s any kind of preoccupation in the family of you’re suspect that your child presents a difficulty in their speech and language or a professional has mentioned and recommended that there´s a difficulty, then ask for help! The best results come always when you do it early!

Sofía Zelou

If your child has been diagnosed recently with autism spectrum disorder, then there are a few things you should have in mind before any steps that you´re about to follow next.

First of all, make sure you know what Autism is.

Make yourself familiar with some characteristics that Autism presents and give yourself time to understand it.

As always and as at any developing stage, you need to understand how things work, yourself, your partner, your family and your child that has been diagnosed.

It’s not only the parents that need to understand so many new things, to accept and to process, but also the children that have been diagnosed.

Ask for help. Don´t feel ashamed to ask for help. Lots of different professionals and therapists are specialized and can help you and your family to face a new reality.

Having Autism is something unique and beautiful. Trust me!

Although it´s very tricky as new challenges appear. Especially the ones that you´ve always been thinking about and at the same time the ones that you´ve been wishing would not happen to you. But here they are and you need to feel that you receive support for yourself as lots of things of how we see the world, we process it, we feel it, will change in the short-term future.

People and children with Autism, believe me, are different, they are just different! Completely different! They see the world with different eyes, more beautiful but also crueler when they realize that so many people around them don’t understand and don’t comprehend them.

When you´ve spent the time to understand what Autism is, you need to ask for help. Some therapists that can help you are:

• Speech therapist
• Psychologists
• OT therapists
• Neuro-psychologists

There are no universal therapies. Each child, in their individuality, requires therapies specific to their needs. No program, no matter how well designed it is, will work the same for all children or for all parents.

Don´t worry, you´re not alone! Just started the most marvelous journey of your life! You´re about to discover new things, glorious things. The world will be seen by pictures, smells, feelings and lots of love! 

You need support first yourself and then your child!

Sofía Zelou

Every child has their own rhythm of language development. Every child is unique.

There are some standard stages of language development that we have to have in mind always and according to them we speech therapists, observe if the child’s language development is normal or it’s not.

Toddler’s speech development tends to follow a fairly set path. For example, by age 2, most children can:

• Use simple two-word phrases, such as “more milk.”
• Ask one- or two-word questions, such as “Go bye-bye?”
• Follow simple commands and understand simple questions.
• Speak about 50 to 100 words.
• Be understood at least half the time by adults who don’t know the child.

Between the ages of 2 and 3, most children:

• Speak in two- and three-word phrases or sentences.
• Use at least 200 words and as many as 1,000 words.
• Ask questions that start with who, what, where or why, such as “Where is mommy?”
• Say their first name when asked.
• Refer to themselves with pronouns, such as I, me, my or mine.
• Also, can be understood most of the time by familiar listeners, such as family members.

If you observe as parents the absence of those characteristics to your toddler between 2 to 3 years old, then you should ask for help. The earlier you do it, the better!

You get in contact with your doctor, in that case, your pediatrician and then with a speech therapist.

There are a few things that need to be checked before the speech therapist informs you that there’s a speech delay or not, such as checking your toddler’s hearing.

Don´t be scared or afraid to ask for help. Remember that the most critical years of your children’s language development are the first 5. If you let the time pass then the problems can be more severe. 

For more information, you can get in contact with me!

Sofía Zelou

Speaking to your baby fires up those important synapses in the part of their brain that handles language. The more words they hear, the stronger those mental connections get. That process can strengthen your child’s future language skills and their overall ability to learn.

Imagine talking to them since they are in your belly, singing to them and reading them books. You create very strong language capacities before your babies are even born. 

Three months before the babies are born, the neurons that handle and are responsible for language, located at the Wernicke’s and Broca’s area (areas that are responsible for language), are sensitive in their mom’s voice.

When they are born, they are connected with their mother and with her voice. 

Also, although our genetic roots contain the basic program to speak, in order to develop effective language, babies must listen and assimilate the specific sounds of the spoken language in their environment.

The spoken words to your baby are the words that your baby is learning. The more you talk to them, the better. They learn new vocabulary, new sounds, new facial expressions according to the words, new body language signs and much more!

By introducing them since they are newborns, words and songs make the grey matter of their brain triple in size and in weight. The first five years are the most critical.

So, go ahead, sing to your babies, talk to them about things that you´re interested in, name them objects, persons, feelings, toys and then observe their reaction. 

The babies are so connected with their mother that her voice for them is the one that guides them. They pay more attention and even their eye contact changes when their mother talks to them.

Enjoy your moments with your newborns!

Sofía Zelou

How many of you are thinking of how to boost your child’s language skills at home because if you don´t do it as soon as possible your child might present an issue with their speech and language? You think you can get enough information through the internet or you can talk about it with friends in order to give you ideas of how they do it or you just feel comfortable and satisfied with what you´re already doing.

Don´t wait until that becomes a problem, an issue or a difficulty.

Rather than asking around or having some doubts about your child’s language development, let me help and give you as many ideas as I can in order to make it fun and enjoy one of the most special moments with your toddler, which is to stimulate their language skills.

Here you have some ideas:

• Play and have fun with your child.
• Name things you see and explain to them why you use them and how. Which is their function.
• Be proactive as a parent and try to dedicate time to inspire your creativity because you´ll need it.
• Create games together, games that wouldn’t be expected from your child. Surprise them and get their attention.
• Anticipate things that are about to come, to do together or separately. That helps their organization and makes things easier for them also when it’s about language.

I wouldn’t recommend you to search around only and get information about ideas, but instead to get in contact with a specialist, as getting in contact with me it doesn´t necessarily means that you do it because your child has an issue or presents a difficulty, but because you´d need some help, some ideas, some useful tips and a personalized plan for the best language stimulation.

That wasn´t enough? I´m here to inspire you and help you! We can create together the best stimulation language plan at home according to your child’s interests, according to your availability and schedule flexibility. 

Contact me!

Sofía Zelou