Your one stop for all things child speech, language and communication skills!
Do you have questions about ‘where to start’ or how best to nurture the speech, language and communication skills of your child or a child you educate? If so, the Chatterbox is the place for you. We aim to answer these questions and build capacity in both parents and educators to support the development of communication skills for all children.
Setting Goals for Communication Success in Early Childhood Settings
Let's set some goals! Hopefully all of you awesome Early Childhood Educators have all been taking a dive into The Chatterbox over the past few weeks and are now gradually becoming more confident in your capacity to accurately identify a young child who has speech, language and/or communication difficulties. [...]
Debunking some myths when parents ask questions…..
Let's debunk some common myths about children and speech/language/communication development. As an early childhood educator, you will need to be ready to accept a range of reactions from parents and caregivers when raising your concerns about a child's development. Every response from a parent or carer is valid and [...]
Considering Parent Perspectives when Discussing Speech and Language Concerns
"I was waiting for my child's early childhood educator to tell me that they had concerns" Too often, this is what we are told by parents and carers when seeing a child for the first time at age 8 in our speech pathology clinics. By then, the child often [...]
So you have some concerns about a child you educate…..
The first step is always to start documenting your observations As an early childhood educator, you cannot accurately identify and support children who have speech, language and communication difficulties without first collecting and documenting your observations. Before you approach parents, it is essential to document your observations about the [...]
Speech Therapy: Is your child getting the right dose?
Dosage and Speech Pathology? Isn't dosage a term used when we are talking about medicines? Yes, getting the dosage just right is really important when you are requiring a prescription from your doctor to manage a physical illness. Getting the correct dosage of therapy is also really just as [...]
Less can be More
I am finding myself coming back to this theme more and more over recent weeks both in my work as a Speech Pathologist and in my personal life. Take small steps every day and eventually you will get there. When things feel overwhelming you can focus on this...just taking [...]