Boyd Meets Girl

Many, MANY children of a variety of ages get evaluated for therapy services... be it speech, physical, occupational, etc. When you feel like everyone else's kid is doing "xyz," hear and believe what I just said because if it wasn't true, I wouldn't have a job. After your child is evaluated, you get word that he/she qualified for therapy... now what? This is meant to serve as a general guide for parents/caregivers of kiddos receiving therapy services, because having worked with families of young children with speech therapy needs, I know that your questions don't stop when the initial evaluation does. I want for this to general enough to apply to a variety of age ranges and a variety of therapy services, but in case you are wondering what MY background and point of view in writing this, I have worked primarily with 0-5 year olds doing speech therapy in the home, clinic and school settings. Not every tip may apply to you as a parent, but I do hope that this wi...

As a parent, I have a lot of dreams for my kids. Actually these dreams have more to do with the characteristics that I want my children to have, hopefully in part due to my amazing parenting skills. Being a good eater, having manners, respecting adults, excelling at and liking school... these are all things that I think most parents hope for as they are raising their little tots. It's scary to think that the way that we approach these philosophies even when they are 1-2 years old and can't even really talk yet absolutely do have an effect on how our kiddos will act when they are older. I mean.... most of us parents are taking it day by day and just hoping for the best, and that is ok! A couple of days ago, a mom on one of my parenting groups posted a question about how to raise an independent child. Because this parenting group is a good one, she got a plethora of responses... and all of it really got me thinking. What I heard was an echoing chorus of the same memories and st...

Exciting news, y'all!! I've been asked to contribute to  CupcakeMag  on my totally "expert opinion" of children, being a mom, and speech therapy things. Of course, I am honored and completely stoked to have this opportunity, because as you may well know, I do like to write about these things! (I'm joking about being an expert - half the time I wonder if I truly know what the heck I'm doing regarding parenting and children at least!)  Click here to read my FIRST blog post about this over at CupcakeMag.  Today marks my first post , about what to do if you are concerned about your child's speech development. Time and time again I have had family members, friends, colleagues, and strangers ask me my opinion on if they should be worried about their kiddo's speech. So, naturally, I wrote a blog post about what to do (and what to refrain from doing) if you are the slightest bit concerned about how your little cherub is progressing in the area of speech!...

The holidays are right around the corner! If you are anything like me, you have all intents and purposes of getting all the Christmas presents bought and wrapped by the Friday after Thanksgiving, but end up doing it all online the week before Christmas. I feel ya girl.  This year, I have two goals, well really THREE goals in mind in regards to Christmas: 1) Budget appropriately to allow for Christmas NOT breaking the bank. 2) Getting Christmas put up and presents wrapped the weekend after Thanksgiving while avoiding and not supporting Black Friday (which I find to be one of the most annoying celebrated holidays in American culture). 3) Not buy my kids and niece annoying, pointless toys that serve no real purpose after the initial excitement than to collect dust in the closet. While it is true that every parent's dream is a zoo membership or 10 visits to Gymboree as a gift for their children, kids like to open presents. I don't need to tell you that, for one can only assu...

Preface: I'm doing a little bit of internal research, and I am finding that what is of most interest to a lot of my blog readers has to do with a) children and b) their speech development. Well, good thing I'm a speech therapist, am I right??? So, I decided that I'm going to start a mini-series showing parents specific developmentally-appropriate toys and how to play with them . By day, I work with children ages 0-3 and their families doing precisely that: teaching families/caregivers strategies of how to facilitate speech and communication development through play. So you're in good hands, people. There is no specific age group that I will be focusing on for this, but I can tell you that a majority of my therapeutic experience in the pediatric realm falls between 18 months to 4 years of age, give or take. However, the beautiful thing about these posts is that I will share activities scaffolding both down and up to cover a variety of concepts and skills. Some of the...

A couple things before we get started. A) this is speech therapist Tara speaking, not mom Tara. Two different hats. B) These are just suggestions and are definitely not an exhaustive list of developmental toys; these are just a few of my favorites C) these toys are only to be used under adult supervision -- duh. D) this blog post contains affiliate links, meaning if you were to click the links and it resulted in a purchase, I would receive a small commission. It might come as a surprise to you, but your little cherub wasn't born knowing how to play. Now, pooping, peeing, and being as cute as a button--- yes, those are innate skills. But playing doesn't always come as naturally. As your child develops, he/she will go through various stages of play development. And as their play skills develop, so do their communication skills and physical skills. What this means is that your child will greatly benefit from playing with you.  In the age of technology (read my thoughts...