As a speech and language therapist I work with a lot of neurodivergent kids. So engaging in discussions about neurodiversity and learning how to be affirming of neurodiverse identities is really important to me. Over recent years, there’s been increasing discussion and research highlighting how our traditional ways of working can be potentially harmful to neurodivergent kids. Traditional ‘social skills’ training can risk teaching children to mask their true nature, which can negatively impact their mental health and wellbeing. In this video I give a brief rundown of the trouble with traditiona ..read more

It’s no wonder our kids find some things scary. So much of it is new to them! And if you add to that a difficulty communicating and different ways of processing sensory information, children are bound to need a little extra time and help along the way. If we’re honest with ourselves, we all have things that make us feel afraid. It’s helpful to think about our own fears to better sympathise with children in those tricky moments. There’s lots of things we can do to help children understand and manage their fears. Here’s some practical ideas to get you started. Acknowledge the feelings. It’s ea ..read more

Do you find yourself asking your child lots of questions and never quite getting a reply? Getting children to answer the question is a common conundrum. Here’s five suggestions to help children answer questions. Do you really need to ask the question? When kids aren’t talking very much, it’s easy for us to get into quiz mode. But, there are more helpful things we can do to support language development. Let’s remember to give, not quiz. When a question pops into your head, try flipping it to a comment. Instead of asking ‘What’s that?’ you might say ‘Oh, it’s car!’ Instead of ‘What you doing ..read more

Wondering how many words your toddler should know? I’ll give you the short answer, the longer answer, and an alternative way of approaching this question. When we’re thinking about vocabulary knowledge, we need to consider whether a child understands the word and whether they can use the word themselves. Often children understand more words than they can use, which means that the ‘vocabulary comprehension’ number for a two year old is in the hundreds, whilst the ‘vocabulary use’ number is closer to 50 words. Remember: there’s a whole lot more to communication than just word count. Your littl ..read more

If your two year old isn’t talking yet it can feel daunting knowing where to begin. There’s so much information out there, what do you pay attention to? This video was inspired by a question from a parent and includes some simple ideas to help you get started. Firstly, spend time together! I know this seems obvious, but when kids aren’t talking it can be easy to think they’re happier playing by themselves. So, I encourage you to keep turning up for the play, without it having to look a particular way. As I’ve said before, it’s all play! Allow for the quiet. It can feel awkward when noone is ..read more

The tea party set is a regular toy found in my speech and language therapy bag. There are so many skills we can practice with this type of play and it is universally popular with the kids I meet. In this video I share several ideas for making the most of tea party play to build language and communication skills. Action words are a great thing to focus on within food play. When your child learns more action words, it’s easier for them to start joining words together. You might model words like chop, squish, stir, or social action words like help and share. You can also model simple phrases ab ..read more

If your child is struggling to communicate, then autism may be one of the topics that you want to find out more about. There’s a lot of scary and negative descriptions of autism on the internet, which is unfortunate and unnecessary. Autism is fundamentally a difference in how someone experiences and interacts with the world around them. If you’re not autistic then an autistic person’s behaviours may be hard to understand. That doesn’t mean that we have to view all these differences as a problem or a disorder. In this video, I talk through the main features of autism without the doom and gloom ..read more

It’s hard to leave behind the things we love, or deal with the disappointment of something being finished. For me, it’s tearing myself away from a good book or realising that I’ve polished off that big bag of crisps. For toddlers, it’s saying goodbye to the park. Or no more crisps. If your toddler has big feelings about things being over, you’re definitely not alone.  In response to a few questions from parents recently about how to deal with this, I went to the local park to shoot you a video… Acknowledge the feelings. When young children express big feelings it’s because it really fee ..read more

Joint attention is a valuable part of your child’s learning and development. Once the two of you have established attention on the same thing then you can talk about it and develop ideas together. In this video I share a few top tips for getting started in helping your child establish joint attention. First: notice faces. Where someone is looking is often a big indicator of what they’re thinking about. If you can get down at eye level with your child, it will be easier for you to notice what they’re paying attention to and to join in with that. If you’re at eye level it’s also easier for you ..read more

Making birthday cupcakes with playdough is a popular activity in my speech and language therapy sessions. It’s useful for building shared attention, learning about sequences and storytelling, with plenty of opportunities to explore a rich vocabulary. I had an extra excuse to make birthday cupcakes this week, as I’m celebrating seven years of running SaLT by the Sea. So, thank you for being here and celebrating with me! I hope you and your child have fun with this activity. There are oh so many things with can do with playdough. Here’s a few more ideas. The post Playdough cakes to build atten ..read more