Getting Your Baby to Communicate

There's lots you can do early on to help your baby to communicate. Speech is one thing and communication is another. Here are some great video clips from James D. MacDonald with tips to help your baby express him or herself.

Free video clips to get you started right away:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEduhGjFQCM

jamesdmacdonald.org watch the videos: http://jamesdmacdonald.org/Articles/youtube.html

Helpful Posts

In this blog, you'll find a variety of informative links to tackle the full range of communciation issues.

First, your child's senses need to be addressed. Is she hearing, breathing and seeing okay? Physical solutions from the posts below will be useful.
Protecting Your Child's Hearing
Improve Your Child's Vision
Keeping Nasal Passages Clear & Mouths Closed

And neurodevelopmental exercises will help with sensory issues as well.
Get Your Own Neurodevelopmentalist
Post coming soon (email me to ask me to finish it sooner!) about Oral Motor Stimulation.

Reading to your child in order for them to hear a variety of words in a variety of ways along with pictures will aid your child in learning new words to communicate with.
Books to Read to Your Baby

Feeding your baby correctly will help with tongue thrust as well as to prevent ear infections.
How to Spoon Feed
Proper Breastfeeding for Down Syndrome

Avoiding unhealthy foods and those that often cause allergies will help to keep nasal and ear passages clear.
Toxin Free Babies
Healthy Meal Planning Blogs

There's also a variety of electronic support that you can use.
My TV/Video Strategy
BrillKids is offering discounts for Special Needs
Readeez: Songs Supporting Reading Free Download
Readeez Sale!
Free iPads ITouches for Special Needs

Helpful Books

Play To Talk: A Practical Guide to Help Your Late-Talking Child Join the Conversation by James MacDonald Ph.D. and Pam Stoika Ph.D

Early Communication Skills for Children with Down syndrome by Libby Kumin

Helpful DVDs

Parent Kit: Using Oral Placement Therapy With Your Child - TalkTools®

This is a great parent DVD for quality, at-home speech therapy. You can purchase the entire parent kit which includes all the tools necessary including a 3 hour DVD where Sara demonstrates how to use each of the tools at home. This is a link to just the dvd http://www.talktools.net/s.nl/it.A/id.1669/.f?sc=23&category=3356 . Talk tools works on building oral motor skills (muscles in the mouth) to build a foundation for speech production.

Communicating Partners DVDs: ECO I and ECO II and Shortcuts are great companions to or replacement for the Play To Talk books because they show you exactly what to do and how to do it. I'm a big fan of James D. MacDonald's techniques!

Related Posts

Protecting Your Child's Hearing
Improve Your Child's Vision
Keeping Nasal Passages Clear & Mouths Closed
Books to Read to Your Baby
BrillKids is offering discounts for Special Needs ...
Early Steps for Better Speech
How to Spoon Feed
Readeez: Songs Supporting Reading Free Download
Readeez Sale!
My TV/Video Strategy

Parent's Resources for Guidance on Down Syndrome

Get Your Own Neurodevelopmentalist

15 Things A New Parent Should Know
Some TV is Good for Our Kids!

Early Steps for Better Speech

It takes a village to be sure!

We took Jett to his first speech evaluation with Renee Hill of Talk Tools last Wednesday (through a scholarship from http://www.dsfflorida.org/ ). She was amazed! She said that she had to evaluate him using the typical scale, not the one for children with DS. She said he was on par and above the typical child. He has no tongue protrusion, great lip closure, strong jaw muscles, etc. He is on his way to clear speech! She said it was the easiest evaluation she'd ever done and had the least amount of suggestions.

A brief history of Jett's language success:

-He's been "babbling paragraphs" for many months. See/hear Jett at 3 months: http://durkinworks.blogspot.com/2010/06/jett-babbling-paragraphs.html.

-Randomly said clear words off and on starting with "Daddy" at six months. (okay, alright, go' boy, oh boy, hey)

-He said his first word of intention at 8 months old: "Water"

-Jett said his first two-word sentence last Sunday: "Poopy good-bye!" (I'll spare you the details!)

This progress didn't happen by accident, of course.

First, breast feeding helped to build his jaw muscles and help with tongue thrust, among many other things. (It was so difficult for the first month or so but he finally got the hang of it!)

Second, we've used James D. MacDonald's (jamesdmacdonald.org) communication methods since he was born. You can see Alex mirroring Jett when he was 3 months old here:
http://durkinworks.blogspot.com/2010/06/jett-milestone-day-talking-jett.html

Third, we read the article: The Oral-Motor Myths of Down Syndrome By Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson, M.S.,CCC/SLP (founder of Talk Tools) when Jett was 3 months old and followed all her advice. You can find the article in Qadoshyah Fish's book, Down Syndrome, What You CAN Do. ( http://stores.lulu.com/gotdownsyndrome )

This DVD workshop by Lori Overland will teach you how. Developing Oral-Motor and Feeding Skills in the Down Syndrome Population. For the cost of just a few therapy appointments, you will get the techniques to simply change the way to feed your baby and thereby build the muscle skill and muscle memory for speech clarity.

Fourth, Kay Ness gave an eye-opening/life changing speech to our DS group that guided us in many ways including emphasizing the importance of keeping our children's nasal and ear canals clear in order to develop proper speech. (http://senc.us/Down_Syndrome.html) Which eventually led to cranial sacral work, AIR tea and Dr. Block's methods to open his nasal passages & ear canal.

Fifth, through following Kay's ND program since 8 months, Jett has been developing his oral sensory skills (mesh feeding bag, massages, etc.) and increasing his vocabulary (flash cards, songs, etc.).

Sixth, Qadoshyah's blog entry about how to feed our children correctly helped prevent bad habits and showed how to use feeding as oral motor therapy:
http://www.gotdownsyndrome.net/spoonfeeding.html

And lastly,
Seventh, to Teresa Cody of CMF who put the pieces together so we can have a path to treat our kids. Without cognition, Jett's speech definitely wouldn't have progressed as much as it has.

So, to Camille Gardiner (friend & DSFF), Kay Ness, Teresa Cody, Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson, Qadoshyah Fish, James D. MacDonald, Dr. Franz, Dr. Loi (TCM), Dr. Marquart, Dr. Block, Vicki Booher (cranial sacral) the lactation specialist Kristin L.Worishcheck who cheered mommy on, our families and of course Alex & Kathy Durkin....

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!