THERE ARE A FEW SIGNS YOUR CHILD NEEDS THERAPY... but don't panic! we are here to help

We will test the patient to begin with using standardised psychometric tests for all areas of speech, language, learning, reading, writing, social interaction and regulation skills, occupational skills, mobility.

We provide a confidential detailed report to you and can diagnose difficulties for NDIS funding or school purposes.

We can also confidentially work with the patient with no diagnosis or report if you prefer.

Your child is repeating words, sound phrases, or saying too many "ums", "ahhs", etc at any age. Stuttering needs to be treated immediately it starts even at two years and is best treated at three and four years of age

Your child is experiencing poor writing skills at school age

They have poor academic progress or needing special education at any age especially second and third grade or year 7 and 8. This may be due to language, writing or reading or processing difficulties and needs to be identified and helped by individual instruction as early as possible.

They have an inability to tell stories after 3 years or an inability to write stories at 7 years

Your child is displaying unusual or repetitive behaviours or obsessions such as only being able to talk about one subject or holding up objects and staring at them for more than 5 seconds

They employ poor sentence construction or verbal or written grammar such as incorrect tense or pronouns incorrect or no complex sentences in speech or writing

It seems that they are needing special provisions for high school (we provide detailed special provision reports for this for learning support needed for special exam provisions such as NAPLAN and leaving certificates such as use of a reader and scribe.) All reports are based upon standardised quantitative measurement of skills using valid and reliable testing regimes on large Australian and US samples such as the CELF test and extensive standardised testing of reading and writing fluency and accuracy and comprehension.

Your child has poor social interaction skills or too shy, poor friendships at any age, poor pragmatic or social skills, difficulty coping with new environments, difficulty coping with school or preschool.

There are signs of developmental delay including teenagers + young and older adults needing help with self care, communication, vocational skills, life skills, living skills.

Or even challenging behaviours at any age. Children as young as two and three are aware of speech or learning difficulties and develop challenging behaviours due to frustration. Once their speech and learning is helped they improve a great deal in their behaviour as well.

When your child is not talking and you are not sure why, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. Today you will learn about language milestones and also red flags for autism. It is important to know the facts, so that you can advocate and help your child. In general, there are things we can do as parents everyday to embed opportunities to work on communication and social skills in the home environment. I have created an easy to use free printable with these strategies, make sure to put your email in down below to get your copy today of our strategies for development and for our "Turning Learning difficulties into superpowers book"

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a wealth of information about developmental milestones. Developmental milestones can give us a better idea of what our child should be doing at different times in their development. Milestones matter! If your child is not doing these things, it is important to share your concern with your therapist. We can provide an assessment that includes three assessment periods of one hour each with measurement and tests not just quickly talking to your child and making an uninformed decision. Then we write a detailed report that if eligible will fit the NDIS criteria if you need NDIS funding. We have helped families who are eligible for fudning but whose doctor has writtena quick report get a review and success by knowing the NDIS functional disability criteria and legislation and addressing these in the report.

If you are concerned there usually is something to worry about so follow your gut feeling. Heres some guidleliens from the centre for disease control:

At 2 months of age most babies:

• Begin to smile
• Look at their parent
• Coo
• Pay attention to faces
• Turn head towards sounds
• At 4 months of age most babies:
• Smile spontaneously, especially at people
• Like to play with people
• Begin to babble
• Cry in different ways to show a variety of needs
• Recognize familiar people and items at a distance
• At 6 months of age most babies:
• Like to play with others, especially familiar people
• Respond to sounds by making sounds
• Like taking turn with parent while making sounds
• Respond to own name
• Begin to string vowels together and say consonant sounds (m,b)
• At 9 months of age most babies:
• Understand no
• Make a lot of different sounds like mama and baba
• Uses a finger to point at things
• Play peek-a-boo
• At 12 months of age most babies:
• Are shy or nervous around strangers
• Repeat sounds or actions to get attention
• Use simple gestures like waving bye
• Try to say words you say
• Say things like mama, dada, uh oh
• There are differences between a language delay and autism. Being informed is vital, so that you can get your child the help that they need as soon as possible! Read on to learn red flags for autism.
• The following are RED FLAGS for autism. Autism Navigator lists 16 early signs of autism by 16 months. Learn more here.
• Hard to get your baby to look at you
• Rarely shares enjoyment with you
• Rarely shares their interests with you
• Rarely responds to their name
• Limited use of gestures such as showing and pointing
• Hard to look at you
• Little or no imitation of people or pretending
• Uses your hand as a tool
• More interested in objects than people
• Unusual ways of moving their body and hands
• Repeats unusual movements with objects
• Develops rituals and may get very upset over change
• Excessive interest in particular objects or activities
• Very focused on or attached to unusual objects
• Unusual reaction to sounds, sights or textures
• Increased tantrums and challenging behaviours
• overactive
• quirky and different
• difficulty learning to play well with others
• Strong interest in unusual sensory experiences
• difficulties learning and concentrating except in an area of main interest
• may have pockets of exceptionally good skills in particular
• So what can you do if you are worried about your child’s development?
• Tell your child’s doctor if you notice any of
• these signs of possible delay and ask for
• a developmental screening.
• Ask for a referral to a specialist such as our service.
• Schedule an appointment with someone who can evaluate and diagnose your child. WE have a team of diagnosticians
• Work on communication skills in the home environment (see our blogs for information on helping school age children with reading writing and learning).
• Working on communication skills in the home environment is amazing for all children! Knowing how to easily embed activities that will allow for communication between parent and child is essential for development. The following are recommendations from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association:
• Respond to your child. Look at them when they make noises.
• Talk to your child.
• Imitate the sounds they make.
• Teach your baby to imitate actions, like peek-a-boo, clapping, blowing kisses, and waving bye-bye. These routines help with turn taking.
• Talk about what you are doing throughout the day. Say things like “Mommy is drinking coffee”; “Daddy is eating pizza”; and “We are reading books.”
• Talk about where you go, what you do there, and who and what you see. Say things like, “We are going to the park today.” “We love to play on the swings at the park.” “The park is so fun!”
• Teach animal sounds, like “A sheep says baa.’”
• Read to your child every day.
• Talk to your child in the language you are most comfortable using.
  References
  

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Language Milestones. Available from www.asha.org

Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Developmental Milestones. Available from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/index.html

Family Resources. (n.d.). Retrieved June 13, 2020, from https://autismnavigator.com/family-resources/