Dana Siletski, M.A., CCC-SLP, is a highly trained and skilled speech language pathologist who is part of The Therapy Gym© team. She has some super tips to help with your child’s development.

Increase Your Child’s Vocabulary:

Teach context clues by replacing nouns with nonsense words. For example, “she licked the cold, vanilla, blootah on the cone.” Then have your child guess what “blootah” replaces. If they guessed “ice cream,” they got it correct! You can do this with vocabulary words learned in school to help with retention as well.

Hiss Like a Snake:

A great way to teach a child who is stimulable to say the “s” sound is to tell them their tongue is a snake and their teeth are the cage. They need to keep the cage closed and not let the snake out of the cage when he hisses. Then hiss like a snake (hisssss). This teaches the child not to make a “th” sound when trying to say “s,” and they learn to not let their tongue stick out through their teeth.

Think small:

An easy way to teach your child to drink from a straw cup is to use a small cup and a small straw. You can buy regular disposable plastic straight straws and cut one in half. A small straw helps the child achieve success when learning to suck through a straw since there is less resistance and the liquid only travels a short distance compared to a long straw. If you can transition from a bottle to a lid cup with a straw, that is even better than a sippy cup.

The Therapy Gym, owned by Dr. Elisheva Fuchs, is the leading pediatric therapy center in Bergen County. The Therapy Gym provides physical, occupational, speech, behavioral and aquatic therapy as well as many classes for kids. Only the best, highly skilled and trained therapists work at the gym to help each child reach his or her potential. If you have questions or concerns about your child’s development, call The Therapy Gym at 201-357-0417 or email [email protected]. You can also follow The Therapy Gym on Instagram and Facebook to learn more tips.