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February 27 2021

Top 5 Toys for Your Toddler

Sholeh Shahinfar Child Communication Development, Language Development, Resources, Uncategorized language development, speech development, top 5 apps 0

Have you ever gone into a store or visited a website and just stared aimlessly at all the products, feeling overwhelmed by the vast selection and thought “which one will be best for my kiddo?” I definitely have! When I first started my career, I definitely overdid it and overspent on my toy inventory, I thought “the more, the better.” Well, I was wrong!

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Through experimenting and experience, I have discovered the magic sauce when shopping for toys for toddlers and want to share some of my favorite toys with you today! Also included are some of my pro-tips on how to use these toys to develop, expand and support your toddler’s speech, language and communication skills:

1. Melissa & Doug: First Play Pound & Roll Stairs Wooden Hammer & Ball

Speech: Work on early developing consonant and vowel combinations like “buh” for “ball” and “ha” for “hammer”
Language: Work on identifying and labeling colors, counting, and spatial concepts, such as “in” and “out,” as well as “up” and “down”
Communication: Work on eye contact, attention and turn taking

2. Melissa & Doug: Safari Animal Rescue Wooden Play Set

Speech: Work on animal sounds and increasing syllable length
Language: Work on following directions with various linguistic concepts, as well as identifying and labeling shapes, colors, and animals. Also work on commenting, requesting, and narrating play
Communication: Work on eye contact, attention, turn taking and play skills

3. Melissa & Doug: Deluxe Pounding Bench

Speech: Work on early developing consonant-vowel combinations like “puh” for “push” and “ha” for “hammer”
Language: Work on identifying and labeling colors, counting, and spatial concepts, such as “in” and “out,” as well as “up” and “down”
Communication: Work on eye contact, attention and turn taking

4. Battat Toys: Pop-Up-Pals

Speech: Work on vowel-consonant or consonant-vowel combinations like “up”, “pop”, “hi”, and “bye-bye”, also work on animal sounds
Language: Work on 1-2 word combinations by labeling the animal, action and/or color (ex: “dog down”, “blue up”), also work on requesting (i.e. “more pop”)
Communication: Work on eye contact, attention and turn taking

5. Top Bright: Wooden Race Track Car Ramp

Speech: Work on later developing phonemes like /k/ and /g/ for “car” and “go”
Language: Work on identifying and labeling colors and numbers, as well as following directions using more advanced spatial concepts such as “on top” or “bottom.” Work on requesting using 2-4 word phrases (ex: “blue car” or “I want blue car”), as well as commenting using prepositional phrases (ex: “car on top”)
Communication: Work on eye contact and turn taking using “my turn” and “your turn”

Are you interested in discovering more:

Ways to use these 5 toys to create speech and language opportunities for your toddler?
Toys that encourage and expand speech and language opportunities for your toddler?

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Sholeh Shahinfar, MA, CCC-SLP, RYT

Sholeh Shahinfar is the founder of Valued Voices, and a licensed Speech Language Pathologist, Child Communication Specialist and Certified Oral Motor Therapist. She is passionate about uplifting children’s voices in the world and inspiring self-expression. In her free time, she loves going to the ocean, exploring nature with her pup Kobe, and spending time with her family and friends!

February 16 2021

Is it Okay If I Expose My Child to Two Languages?

Sholeh Shahinfar Child Communication Development, Language Development, Resources, Uncategorized bilingual, cognitive skills, communication, decision making, exposure, languages, problem solving, proficiency, two languages 0

I get asked this question all the time, and the answer is YES! Raising your child to be bilingual can actually be beneficial for your little one’s brain development, language development, and cognition! In fact, just hearing two languages helps babies develop strong>cognitive skills, such as decision making and problem solving, before your little one even begins to speak. If you read my blog Communication & Connection with Your Baby In & Out of the Womb, you know that babies begin to learn language from within the womb. At 26 weeks in utero, your baby starts to hear, such as pitch, some rhythm, and some specific speech sounds, making language development, including dual language development, happen right inside the womb!

It has been long assumed that childhood bilingualism affected a child’s developing mind and that consequently, learning two languages would be confusing. However, a study by Peal & Lamber, found that bilingual children were superior on most tests, especially those requiring symbol reorganization and manipulation. Since then, the difference between monolingual and bilingual children has been explored in several studies, most finding a significant impact on overall cognitive development for bilingual children, debunking the myth that learning two languages at the same time can be confusing.

A study out of the University of Washington, tested 16 babies and found that the babies from English and Spanish speaking households showed activity in their prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex-regions of the brain that are responsible for executive functioning tasks, like decision making and problem solving.

To sum it up. the research shows that the best window of opportunity to expose your little one to a second language is during their early childhood years and that there are in facts, benefits to being bilingual.

Exposure & Quantity: How often is your child exposed to each language
Proficiency & Quality: How proficient is the speaker your kiddo is learning from
Simultaneous vs. Sequential: What is the manner in which the second language is exposed?

Simultaneous Language Acquisition is when your little one learns both languages at the same time, typically before 3 years of age, and this can come in a few different forms:

Each Parent Picks a Language: Each parent selects the language they are most comfortable and proficient in speaking and speaks that language with your kiddo. For example, Parent 1 grew up speaking Spanish and is also proficient in English, Parent 2 only speaks English, so Parent 1 speaks Spanish to their little one, and Parent 2 speaks English.
Mixing It Up: One parent speaks one language to the child while the other parent speaks both languages. For example, Parent 1 grew up speaking Mandarin and only speaks Mandarin to the child, Parent 2 is proficient in Mandarin and English so Parent 2 speaks both languages to the child.
Both Parents Speak Both Languages: Each parent speaks both languages to their child and determines what setting and what opportunity is best for each language. For example, both parents speak mostly English at home, but when they go to grandparent’s house, they speak Arabic.

Sequential Language Acquisition is when your child learns one language first and then learns another language afterwards. Reminds me of middle school French class or even more, how I grew up (more on that to come).

Research has shown when compared to monolingual children, it is common for children learning two languages to have a decreased repertoire of vocabulary, however, this usually catches up once your little one starts school. When your little one begins using words, make sure you count how many words they are using in both language (for example, “dog” in English and “cane” or “cagna” in Italian-although has the same meaning, counts as two different words.

If you are contemplating whether or not to expose your little one to more than one language, I say do it I grew up as a sequential language learner, my first language was Farsi and my second language, learned in school, was English. I later went onto take French in middle and high school and sadly to say, not much stuck-this goes to show the importance of early language acquisition! For my parents, what felt right for them was talking to me in the language they felt most proficient in, Farsi, and having me learn English once I began going to preschool. Do what is right for your family, connect with your kiddo and see what lands best for them.

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Sholeh Shahinfar, MA, CCC-SLP, RYT

Sholeh Shahinfar is the Founder of Valued Voices, a licensed Speech Language Pathologist, Child Communication Specialist and Certified Oral Motor Therapist. She is passionate about uplifting children’s voices in the world and inspiring self-expression. In her free time, Sholeh embraces a vegan lifestyle, loves going to the ocean, exploring nature with her pup Kobe, practicing yoga, traveling, and spending time with her loved ones.

January 7 2021

Communication and Behaviors

Sholeh Shahinfar Child Communication Development, Language Development, Resources, Speech Therapy, Uncategorized behaviors, communicate, communication, communication development, difficulties, emotional development, engage, expression, language development, nonverbal, speech delay, toddler, verbal 0

Communication comes in so many forms. Nonverbal communication includes our body language, eye contact, signs, gestures, and so much more! Verbal communication includes babbling, spoken words, and the use of a device,

When our little ones are experiencing communication delays and differences, this can have a ripple effect into many areas of their life.

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Let’s look at a couple of examples:

Story 1: Little Johnny is on the playground. He is talking to his friends but his friends just can’t understand what he is saying, so they don’t really engage with him and after a few minutes they go onto play something else without Johnny. This keeps happening to Johnny over and over again, and so he begins to get sad and frustrated. He starts to avoid and withdraw himself from social situations, and starts playing by himself. When he talks at home to his parents, they sometimes don’t understand him either, so he keeps repeating himself until eventually he gets so upset, that he throws his toy car. Johnny’s speech delay is not only impacting his communication development, but it is also impacting his social and emotional development as well.

Story 2: Maggie is 5 years old. She has difficulty following directions and doesn’t use many words to express her wants, needs, thoughts and feelings. Maggie has been going to speech/language therapy since she was 3. There are 20 children in Maggie’s class and when the teacher gives the direction “clean up your snack, go wash your hands and get in line for recess,” Maggie only got the first part “clean up your snack.” She doesn’t yet have the words to ask her teacher for help or for a repetition, so Maggie feels lost and she begins to feel frustrated that all the other kids are doing something else. She begins to lose confidence because she compares herself to her peers. This delay in understanding and using language (also known as receptive and expressive language) is not only impacting Maggie’s communication, but it is having adverse impacts on her academic learning, social development and emotional development.

You can see from the examples above, that when a child has difficulty being understood (due to speech sound errors, fluency, rate of speech, vocal volume, etc.) this leads to frustration, withdrawal/isolation, etc. which may have adverse effects on behavior, social and emotional development. When a child has difficulty understanding language (receptive language), this may lead to behavior challenges, negative impact on learning, and social/emotional development. Additionally, when a child has difficulty producing language (expressive language), this tends to have big impacts on a child’s overall development and behavior. For example, a toddler that is communicating through pointing and gesturing but the parent cannot always determine the child’s needs, begins to feel frustrated as they are not feeling seen, heard and understood. This leads to behavior challenges (i.e. tantrums, throwing, hitting, etc.) as the child is communicating but their needs are not being understood/acknowledged. Again, this may have later effects on learning, as well as social/emotional development.

Children that are not understood by others tend to “give up” as they feel like nobody will understand them. Some express their frustration through kicking, screaming, or hitting. This is why it is important to connect to our children’s need and give less focus to their behavior. Providing children with the tools to effectively communicate, as well as guiding parents on how to great more opportunities for communication and connection is key!

Some tips include:

Gain attention
Provide choices
Break things down (directions or your own language)
Provide natural reinforcement and connection
Acknowledge & Validate
Create space
Create opportunities

Often times, when there is a speech, language and communication deficit, we see impacts on learning, emotional development, social development, and behaviors. I believe a big reason for this is because instead of connecting to the expression we are focusing on the behavior.

Remember, instead of focusing on the behavior (“I said NO kicking!”), try connecting to your child’s expression and feelings (“I see that you are feeling frustrated right now, do you want your cars or blocks”-while holding up a car and block so that your child can point and show you their wants/needs).

Connection in communication is key and starts within the womb!

To find out more tips and ways to connect with your little one’s journey self-expression, book a parent coaching session with me today

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