Late Talkers

At two years of age, typically developing children use at least 50 words and they start to combine 2-word phrases. If your child is understanding language but not meeting this milestone, I can help your child as well as teach you effective strategies to  foster their speech development.

If your child is  mispronouncing speech sounds, like /k/, /s/, /l/, and /r/,   I can teach  them how to pronounce  speech sounds clearly, so that they will be better understood by their listeners, and speak with confidence.

If your child has difficulty making meaningful eye contact with people; if they do not consistently respond when called by name, despite having normal hearing; or they have difficulty engaging  in conversations or in back-and-forth play activities, then their communication skills are not following the typical course of development. I can help your child learn the communication skills they need to improve their social interactions.

Between the ages of 2 and 6 years, children's speaking skills are rapidly expanding, and they may experience a period of dysfluent speech that is marked by the use of  word and phrase repetitions.  The majority of such children resolve without the need for therapy, however roughly 5% of them go on to develop a stutter. I can teach your child effective behavioural techniques to help manage the stuttering.

Children with expressive language difficulties may have difficulty retelling a  story, describing  a personal experience, or explaining  a procedure. They may use unspecific words, such as here, there, this, that, and thing, or use gestures in place of words to communicate. They may use grammatically incomplete sentences, or incorrect tenses and pronouns . I can help such children expand their vocabulary and give them the practice they need to express their  thoughts, clearly and succinctly. 

 By the end of their first year of life, children have listened to their home language(s) and they develop an understanding for familiar names of people, places, objects and actions, and they begin to follow familiar, 1-step, verbal directions and understand  simple questions. If your child is having difficulty with such skills, I can help support their language comprehension development.

Children first LEARN to read, then later, they READ to learn. I can help spark your child's interest in picture books and help establish early literacy skills such as word knowledge,  letter recognition,  rhyming, and sight reading.  I can help you select age-appropriate books  and show you how to bring books to life that will make book-sharing time with your child fun and exciting.