On this episode, I welcome Brooke and Bridget. They are sisters and speech therapists in Southern California, who own their own practice.

We discuss:
1. What parents can due in the “wait and see” period as development is being monitored.
2. Tips on engaging speech under the age of one and between one and two years of age.
3. What a typical speech therapy session looks like.
4. When a child should be referred to a speech therapist.

00;00;06;16 – 00;00;36;25

Dr. Mona

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the PedsDocTalk podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Mona, where each week I hope to educate and inspire you in your journey through parenthood with information on your most common concerns as a parent and interviews with fellow parents and experts in the field. My hope is you leave each week feeling more educated, confident and empowered in the decisions you make for your child.

 

00;00;36;27 – 00;00;49;11

Dr. Mona

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode where I have Brookee and Bridget, who are sisters and speech therapists, and we are going to be talking all about talking. Welcome, Brookee and Bridget.

 

00;00;49;13 – 00;00;51;04

Brooke & Bridget

Hey, how are you? Hello.

 

00;00;51;11 – 00;01;12;00

Dr. Mona

So I’m so glad you guys are here. I have really enjoyed this podcast because I can bring on so many amazing people that work with children. And obviously speech therapy is an extremely important aspect of pediatric medicine. So describe a little bit about why you chose to be speech therapists, and a little bit about your business and your Instagram speech.

 

00;01;12;00 – 00;01;13;16

Dr. Mona

Sisters.

 

00;01;13;19 – 00;01;45;17

Brooke & Bridget

Sure. Okay, so this is Brookee. I chose to get into the field of speech and language pathology because I started off as a special education teacher, and I just loved working with that population. And I decided to specialize a little further and went back to grad school for speech, which I love. Yeah. And this this is Bridget. And I also started speech language pathology because I had worked with children who have autism.

 

00;01;45;17 – 00;01;56;13

Brooke & Bridget

I was a behavioral therapist, and I worked with a few speech and language pathology pathologists and decided to also go into this field for that reason.

 

00;01;56;15 – 00;02;10;22

Dr. Mona

Amazing. And you guys obviously own your own. Basically practice for as a speech therapist. And then you also have the Instagram account speech sisters. So, tell me more about the services you provide on your Instagram and website.

 

00;02;10;24 – 00;02;38;26

Brooke & Bridget

Yeah, yeah, we started a private practice here in California in 2012, and we worked a lot with early intervention clients, and we got a lot of referrals from pediatricians in our area, and we started specializing in helping parents get involved in helping their children who were late to talk. So we put our heads together and thought about how could we help more parents, you know, rather than going home to home.

 

00;02;39;08 – 00;03;02;22

Brooke & Bridget

How could we reach more families with the tips and tricks that we provide with our clients, you know, in the private practice? And that’s kind of how Speech Sisters came about. So we decided to create an Instagram account. And at first I think we just had a very small vision. Then slowly but surely, it came together. And here we are with, you know, 50,000 followers and, two online courses.

 

00;03;02;22 – 00;03;11;02

Brooke & Bridget

And it’s really taken off. And we’ve helped so many families and parents become a little more confident in their child’s speech and language development.

 

00;03;11;04 – 00;03;32;00

Dr. Mona

I love it, and that’s exactly why I wanted you guys on, because I have. I found your account. You’re on Good Morning America. Also, let’s not forget that we have. During their Insta parenting week or two weeks that they have, which is awesome. But, you know, for me, as a pediatrician, I obviously know child development in terms of speech, motor, fine motor, whatever it may be.

 

00;03;32;06 – 00;03;55;10

Dr. Mona

But we really, really utilize our speech therapists for so many reasons. And it’s not I think there’s a misconception, and that’s why I’m glad you guys are on. There’s a misconception that kids who receive speech therapy, there’s some sort of label that’s a negative label. And I really want parents to understand that receiving therapies, speech, part of it’s actually important for the child if they need it to receive it.

 

00;03;55;13 – 00;04;13;27

Dr. Mona

As a pediatrician, I commonly, you know, get parents who are hesitant and they’re like, well, if I go to speech therapy, then that means that I have this, you know, like I said, label or whatever. And I really want us to educate families and for them to understand that seeing a specialist, seeing a speech therapist, seeing whatever specialist you need to see is a beneficial thing.

 

00;04;13;27 – 00;04;20;16

Dr. Mona

And it’s not a negative thing. So I am so glad you all are here, because this is what I want to educate these families about.

 

00;04;20;18 – 00;04;22;14

Brooke & Bridget

That’s great. Yeah, we agree with that.

 

00;04;22;14 – 00;04;41;07

Dr. Mona

Yeah. So along those lines, you know, as I said, I am a pediatrician and I do see milestones and that is the bread and butter of a being of being a general pediatrician. But there’s one thing that I know we wanted to talk about, which is your your input and your recommendations. When you hear, because I know it happens.

 

00;04;41;07 – 00;04;55;13

Dr. Mona

I’ve, I’ve been guilty of doing it too. And I want to have an honest discussion about it. When we say to a family, you know what, let’s wait and see. So the wait and see approach with speech. What are your concerns with wait and see?

 

00;04;55;15 – 00;05;30;10

Brooke & Bridget

Yeah. So we don’t disagree with wait and see because in many cases a toddler doesn’t really need speech therapy. They do just need more time. However, our concern is that then the parent, you know goes home, they return to normal life and they literally just wait and see what happens in six months. So our philosophy is that during that wait and see time, which we completely agree with and think is great, we feel like in some cases, yes, in some cases.

 

00;05;30;10 – 00;05;58;20

Brooke & Bridget

Right, exactly. But we want parents to have a set of tools that they can use to be proactive, about how they can get their child communicating. So, you know, that’s. Yeah, I yeah, I think that it’s just very important for parents, if it’s really to know whether to move forward with speech therapy, if a child isn’t meeting the milestones.

 

00;05;58;25 – 00;06;28;23

Brooke & Bridget

And, if a child’s not understanding language, not following directions and they’re not using, you know, meeting the expressive language milestones and using any word, maybe we don’t want to wait and see. But I think what Breck was saying is that wait and see approach for kids who appear to be understanding language. They have, you know, positive, happy engagement and interactions with their parent, but they’re just not using as many words as they should in those cases.

 

00;06;28;26 – 00;06;42;19

Brooke & Bridget

Wait and see. You know, many times it is okay and those kids do catch up. We just want parents to have like, books that a set of tools that they can use and implement during that time.

 

00;06;42;21 – 00;07;06;00

Dr. Mona

Yeah, that is beautiful because I, you know, my concern with, you know, the wait and see from the perspective of speech therapists is OTS commonly you guys don’t do this, but I commonly get, you know, even on my Instagram. Hey, why you know, you shouldn’t you should get evaluated in our perspective. And I’m so glad you guys, you guys are have this sort of mentality in our perspective as patricians.

 

00;07;06;04 – 00;07;22;29

Dr. Mona

We do the wait and see. And it’s not that wait and see and not do anything. Like you said, I think the pitfall that pediatricians fall into, and including myself, is that we don’t get enough time with our patients a lot of the time to explain all the little things that you guys, as speech therapists are able to do.

 

00;07;22;29 – 00;07;50;24

Dr. Mona

Right. So that is a perfect thing that you said that it’s not wait and see and wait and go back to watching an iPad. It’s not it’s what can we do to engage our children in all aspects of development. And I really love the way you guys talk about the wait and see, because that is exactly what I want to do as a pediatrician to write with my, my Instagram and as, as, you know, doctor in my office because I find that I agree and I see it happen with my colleagues that they’ll say, okay, no, don’t worry.

 

00;07;50;24 – 00;08;16;06

Dr. Mona

Just, you know, continue talking to your child. But how do you talk to your child? How do you engage them? And that is where you all are coming in. And we’re going to talk about. So my next question is what can parents do in the wait and see period in terms of just kind of general, recommendations? You know, if you kind of want to speak about we can do this, like maybe the under one crowd we can do first and then talking about kids between the ages of one and two.

 

00;08;16;07 – 00;08;20;29

Dr. Mona

Just some tips that parents can do to engage speech while they wait and see.

 

00;08;21;01 – 00;08;54;17

Brooke & Bridget

Sure, absolutely. So this is exactly why we created one of our online courses. It’s called The Late Talker. And it’s for these kiddos that are 15 months to 36 months and late talker. They understand language, but they’re just not talking yet. And so for that, you know, again, that crowd which would be between anywhere between one and day three, we recommend a couple of our strategies that we really promote and teach in our course, one being a repeat.

 

00;08;54;19 – 00;09;33;19

Brooke & Bridget

Repeat again and again and again and again over and over until you can’t repeat anymore. This is critical. Kids need to children. Toddlers need to hear words. Many, many, many, many times before they can say them themselves. And also like when you are repeating them, saying them in context. So if you’re, you know, pouring coffee in the morning and holding your baby, you might say paw paw as you’re actually doing it, or if you have a banana in your hand, you say banana as you’re holding the banana to really bring meaning to life and repeating those words exactly.

 

00;09;33;21 – 00;10;02;14

Brooke & Bridget

Another super important strategy that is very hard. And it’s hard as a parent. It’s hard as a therapist, it’s it’s hard for us. It’s really hard. It’s waiting. So giving your child time to talk because often we don’t think to do that. We talk and talk and talk and talk and it is good to talk. You want to talk, you want to model the language, but you also want to give them some time to be able to get a word in as well.

 

00;10;02;17 – 00;10;11;11

Dr. Mona

So an example would be like if they’re trying to say dog and they’re going duh. And you basically just let them say dog without trying to finish their sentence.

 

00;10;11;13 – 00;10;31;25

Brooke & Bridget

Yeah. Or let’s say you’re repeating the word right. You’re repeating something again and again. Like that first strategy we were highlighting. And you’re saying dog, dog. If you don’t stop there and have a five second moment of silence, how is your child going to have the opportunity to say dog? But it’s funny. We tell parents, wait five seconds.

 

00;10;31;27 – 00;10;41;23

Brooke & Bridget

That is a lot. It feels like a long, silent pause. It’s very weird. So we don’t do it. It’s not natural for us as parents or human beings, but kids need it. Yeah.

 

00;10;41;26 – 00;10;43;25

Dr. Mona

That’s amazing. Yeah.

 

00;10;43;28 – 00;11;20;17

Brooke & Bridget

And then the third, we talk a lot about facing your baby or your toddler, so really getting on their level, eye to eye, so that they can see you. They can watch your mouth as you produce words and sounds. It builds more understanding and overall just helps that engagement in the interaction and facilitates communication. Yeah. And during, you know, daily routines, making sure you face your child and get on their level, but also during reading which as parents, we all do is read to our child so many times.

 

00;11;20;17 – 00;11;38;19

Brooke & Bridget

Will and we talked about this on GMA. We asked, how do you read to your child? And most people say they face their child at word and hold a book and they’re both facing in the same direction. But we tell parents, spin your baby around so that they can see you and so that they can see your face.

 

00;11;38;24 – 00;11;39;09

Dr. Mona

 

00;11;39;11 – 00;11;58;18

Brooke & Bridget

And then you can your baby can watch your mouth as you’re saying words, and you can look and see what your baby is looking at in the book, which is so important because if your baby is looking at the moon and goodnight Moon, then you want to point and say moon. So that’s another helpful tip. Yeah.

 

00;11;58;20 – 00;12;14;21

Dr. Mona

I’m getting a little emotional because I do this with Ryan and I. I like the last one. You just mentioned that during reading, having them face you, and I in pictures when like if people, you know, take a picture with their kid reading, you are right that it’s usually facing like they’re both parallel and facing the same way out.

 

00;12;14;21 – 00;12;30;27

Dr. Mona

And I was like, why are people I don’t know if maybe people, that’s how people read. But I’m like, I like looking into his eyes. And you are so right that even in infancy, like seeing his eyes light up when I he loves this book. Green peas, little green peas. I don’t know if you guys know this.

 

00;12;31;00 – 00;12;32;14

Brooke & Bridget

No, no, it’s.

 

00;12;32;16 – 00;12;48;10

Dr. Mona

Adorable book, and it’s about colors and these little peas, and they’re green, obviously. But when, when I, when I read this book, he loses his mind of happiness. And he and you. And he’s only four months. Right. And I look into his eyes and I like, have the book kind of to the side and I’m like looking at him.

 

00;12;48;16 – 00;13;07;16

Dr. Mona

It is such a beautiful thing. And like you said, it’s not even just for speech. It’s for emotional connection with the kids. Right. And that’s that’s a whole part, another part of development. And that’s why I love, you know, talking to you guys and following your page, because all the stuff that you guys talk about in speech therapy is also so critical for emotional bonding, right?

 

00;13;07;18 – 00;13;17;00

Dr. Mona

Getting on their level, facing them, waiting to speak. It’s parenting 101. So I, I love it. So sorry. Continue. I just have to add that,

 

00;13;17;03 – 00;13;17;25

Brooke & Bridget

Thank you.

 

00;13;17;26 – 00;13;18;18

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;13;18;20 – 00;13;37;06

Brooke & Bridget

Yeah, that was for the, you know, 1 to 2 year old crowd. But yeah, for our little guys, we want to make sure we are talking to our babies. And for our older kids. Yeah, it really applies to it applies to all ages. But from the beginning, talk to your baby. I mean, even in utero, talk to your baby.

 

00;13;38;01 – 00;13;50;25

Brooke & Bridget

And we, you know, in our courses and, and on Instagram, we talk about how to talk to your baby. So we don’t want to talk a mile a minute and say, oh, we’re walking down the stairs because I have to get out of the house and get to the coffee place.

 

00;13;50;25 – 00;13;51;16

Dr. Mona

And you know, you.

 

00;13;51;16 – 00;14;18;06

Brooke & Bridget

Don’t want to overload them with too many words. You want to keep it short and sweet and simple. And then it’s also about the manner in which you talk to them. And that leads us to our next tip. Exactly. So there’s something called parent ease or mother ease or infant directed speech. Some people call it baby talk. But there is a right way to use this type of baby talk in a in a not right way.

 

00;14;18;06 – 00;14;38;26

Brooke & Bridget

So, you know, we don’t want to we don’t want to express words using the wrong sounds. We want to talk in this high pitched, exaggerated speaking style that captures our baby’s attention. Do you want to give an example?

 

00;14;38;28 – 00;14;52;25

Brooke & Bridget

With this? This is funny because we talked about baby talk on GMA, and Brookee had to talk about it, and she knew she was going to have to do this in front of, like, Michael and everybody on the set. And she’s like I’m so embarrassed. So we would.

 

00;14;52;25 – 00;14;53;13

Dr. Mona

Practice.

 

00;14;53;13 – 00;15;01;22

Brooke & Bridget

And yeah I think you were the one to do it. So I think you should do it now. You know, it’s I can see your. No.

 

00;15;01;23 – 00;15;02;26

Dr. Mona

Yes, yes.

 

00;15;02;29 – 00;15;11;17

Brooke & Bridget

Let me get the. No. You know. Yeah. And I think Brookee and I, we are baby talk warriors. I mean we I.

 

00;15;11;19 – 00;15;32;15

Dr. Mona

I am two guys. It is, my husband. It drives him nuts because he doesn’t like talking from anyone. Especially baby talk. Like, why are you always baby talking? Can I know you probably have more to add, but is there an age where you want to stop the baby talking that pitch like a certain age that you would recommend to just switching it to, like how me and you are talking?

 

00;15;32;18 – 00;15;55;07

Brooke & Bridget

That’s a really good question. I kind of feel like it like fades out. Yeah. I’m thinking about Stella. I mean, we have five kids that we have used, you know, mother, mother eats or parents with. And Stella’s 18 months now and I absolutely still use it. Maybe not in the same way that I did shoot when she was an infant, but I still use that high pitched voice.

 

00;15;55;13 – 00;16;03;16

Brooke & Bridget

And not all the time. Not all the time, not all the time. But there are moments. I mean, yesterday, I think on her Instagram story, I was chasing her and I was saying.

 

00;16;03;23 – 00;16;06;15

Dr. Mona

I’m going to get you, I’m going to get you.

 

00;16;06;16 – 00;16;13;08

Brooke & Bridget

You know, it’s it is that high pitched voice and it makes them excited. I mean, even into the two year old level. Right.

 

00;16;13;10 – 00;16;31;02

Dr. Mona

And from like a I mean, again, adding a pediatrician developmental standpoint, I like my husband, me and my husband, and he’s an example. He I talked a lot of high pitch at the beginning especially. And now, like you said, when they’re born, they, they, they hear really high pitched sounds. And it’s just nice for you to like, say it high pitched.

 

00;16;31;02 – 00;16;46;15

Dr. Mona

And then as they get, it’s just it’s just comes naturally that you want to speak like that to them. It’s I don’t know how to explain if you if you’re listening and you don’t have a kid yet, but when I’m a, you know, I’m in the office when they’re infants. I can’t not speak baby talk like it’s especially speaking to them.

 

00;16;46;18 – 00;17;04;00

Dr. Mona

And then you’re right. Like, as as they get older, like toddlers, maybe older toddlers too. I feel like, oh, developmentally, they are more capable of speaking to me like like I would like an older kid. Obviously they keep it slow, but it’s so interesting because you’re right, it’s almost like I just have to read your kid a little bit and cuteness.

 

00;17;04;02 – 00;17;21;13

Brooke & Bridget

Yeah. And I think it becomes, you know, as they become toddlers in the two and three year old stages, it’s almost like a new kind of baby talk. It’s not that like super parent ease, but it’s not like you would. I would talk to Brookee, but you. But there’s you also want to be sure that you that you are saying words correctly.

 

00;17;21;13 – 00;17;40;14

Brooke & Bridget

So that’s the right you know, that’s the takeaway. And really the big thing about this is, you know, when they’re babies, it doesn’t matter as much because they’re just it’s really just about that engagement in that interaction. But once they start using real words, you want to use the real, you want to use real word, and you want to really emphasize the correct sounds.

 

00;17;40;14 – 00;17;44;19

Brooke & Bridget

And so there’s a time and a place. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

 

00;17;44;21 – 00;17;47;29

Dr. Mona

And I interrupted you was at the last kind of big tip.

 

00;17;48;17 – 00;18;13;17

Brooke & Bridget

Our final tip is for these little guys again is imitation. So this is so big. It’s sort of that like babble, babble back. Right. So, you know, how do you get your child to learn to talk while you imitate them? To start? If they start making cooing sounds or babbling sounds to back. Yep. Go back and say that.

 

00;18;13;18 – 00;18;33;27

Brooke & Bridget

Well, you know, if they’re going to start that, we say say da da da. And people are like, well, isn’t that wouldn’t that be weird? Because it’s not real language. But it gets that back and and forth reciprocal interaction going, which is so important for early language development. It’s really the beginning of conversational skills.

 

00;18;34;00 – 00;18;53;10

Dr. Mona

Oh yeah. And it’s and it’s so interesting that they do it from such a young age. Like it’s just fascinating. And that’s why I love obviously you can tell I love being a pediatrician. I love when I go in and the parents are surprised. They’re like, wow, he’s it seems like he’s talking to you. I’m like, yeah, because they’re trying to learn and they want to be talked to.

 

00;18;53;12 – 00;19;02;07

Dr. Mona

Absolutely. They want someone in their face. Kids want someone in their face because that’s how they learn. They learn through your face. It’s awesome. It’s a beautiful thing, really.

 

00;19;02;12 – 00;19;03;20

Brooke & Bridget

It is.

 

00;19;03;23 – 00;19;18;28

Dr. Mona

And it’s it’s such a I think that’s why I like I said I earlier, I was little emotional because it’s just such a sweet thing to see that happen in infants and in kids. And then you’re like, wow, they I swear they said hi. I swear, you know, they’re blowing bubbles or they’re doing all this sort of, you know, using their tongue in their lips.

 

00;19;18;28 – 00;19;27;14

Dr. Mona

And you’re like, so proud. It’s just such a awesome thing. And I I’m sure you guys get excited when you work with families and you get to see that development happen. That’s must be so rewarding.

 

00;19;27;20 – 00;19;45;28

Brooke & Bridget

Oh, it’s the best it. Yeah. And you know, it’s been cool because we running a private practice have been able to see it firsthand. But we get DMs of people who are like that worked in my baby saying, mama, now. And it’s just so cool because it’s like we’re not even there, but we’re able to help these families and these little ones.

 

00;19;46;01 – 00;20;07;16

Dr. Mona

That is so amazing. And I, you know, the next thing I wanted to ask was like, kind of going into lines of, I know you get DMs for your Instagram advice, but in your practice, right? I want to know, like what exactly a speech therapy session looks like, how long they last, and when you kind of decide that, okay, let’s graduate you from speech therapy and you can move on.

 

00;20;07;18 – 00;20;09;21

Dr. Mona

Sure.

 

00;20;09;24 – 00;20;32;29

Brooke & Bridget

So general, generally, you know, a speech therapy session I would say goes anywhere between like 40 to 60 minutes. In our practice we do 50 minute sessions, for early intervention. It’s more play therapy, where we are, you know, getting down and dirty on the floor and playing with the child. Yeah, we do a lot of child directed therapy at that age.

 

00;20;32;29 – 00;20;59;06

Brooke & Bridget

So really just kind of following, you know, what they’re interested in. And that that seems to work very well. We also highly encourage parents and caregivers to join in on our speech sessions. And, you know, we just know that that there’s so much more progress to be made when parents and caregivers are involved. Yeah, we always say, like, you know, that parent is the expert on their own child.

 

00;20;59;20 – 00;21;19;25

Brooke & Bridget

So we go into home so many times and they’re like, here, here’s my child, like, can you fix them? And it’s like, yes, but we want you and need you to be here to be involved because we’re here for 45 minutes, twice a week, and you’re with your child all day, every day. So if you don’t know what to do when we leave, then this is going to take a long time.

 

00;21;19;27 – 00;21;44;10

Brooke & Bridget

Yeah, exactly. So yeah. So and then, you know, as the kiddos get older in speech therapy, the sessions can go a little longer. Like like Bridget said, we always do a 15 minute session. But, and then in terms of when they’re ready to move out of speech, it’s for the little ones, you know, when they when they’re hit their milestones and they’re on track.

 

00;21;44;24 – 00;21;54;24

Brooke & Bridget

It varies. You know, it’s so case by case and depending on what’s going on with that specific child, it’s it’s so unique. No child is the same, right?

 

00;21;54;24 – 00;22;22;23

Dr. Mona

Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly the, the point that there’s different milestones and it’s a huge range. And it doesn’t mean you’re behind or better or worse, it just means that you’re on your own pace. Just like just like growth curves at the pediatric office. Sure. Yeah. Well, no that’s awesome. I you know, I always wondered you know, how it looks like I have started to have to go to, early intervention for Ryan, just because of his birth, his, birth history.

 

00;22;22;29 – 00;22;42;14

Dr. Mona

And it’s just so fascinating to me as a pediatrician, obviously going and taking my son now because I’ve always made those referrals, but I’ve never seen what it looks like on the other side. So, we haven’t had to go to speech therapy yet, and we may not. We don’t know yet. But, in terms of, you know, seeing how those therapies work, it’s just it’s really eye opening.

 

00;22;42;14 – 00;22;46;14

Dr. Mona

And I love seeing that perspective. So I love hearing how that session kind of goes.

 

00;22;46;16 – 00;23;09;18

Brooke & Bridget

Yes, I it is it’s it’s neat to to be on the other side of it. I fully get that actually my daughter this is Brookee talking. My daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy a few years ago, and she has had some learning issues since then. So, you know, she’s in second grade. But when like about a year or so ago, she was put on an IEP and had to go through all this testing.

 

00;23;09;18 – 00;23;22;03

Brooke & Bridget

And part of it was speech and language testing. And I am like I was on the other end so I can yeah, we get that where it’s extremely eye opening and really cool to see, you know.

 

00;23;22;05 – 00;23;43;05

Dr. Mona

Yeah. Now, what I wanted to kind of ask is, between let’s talk more between the ages of one and two, because I know that’s huge. Huge. I mean, language acquisition, I know happens earlier, but between the ages of one and two, when do you believe children should be referred to a speech therapist? If you want to break that down, however you want to do it in your opinion?

 

00;23;43;08 – 00;24;11;16

Brooke & Bridget

Sure. That’s such a great question. And it’s such a hard question because in these cases, it really does depend on the child and what is going on in the chat with the child. So for us, you know, in our private practice, and then even now just through Instagram, because we get so many DMs a day asking us this very same question, we want to look at the child as a whole and look at kind of every thing and every part that is going on with this child.

 

00;24;11;16 – 00;24;36;20

Brooke & Bridget

So first things first, we do always want to kind of get some kind of an understanding of their receptive language. So how well are they understanding, language. Are they able to follow a very simple command? You know, when they’re 12 months old, it’s a little bit harder to know that. But usually, you know, there are maybe they can point to a body part or, you know, where’s dad?

 

00;24;36;20 – 00;24;59;13

Brooke & Bridget

I’ll look to data. You can start to kind of have an idea as to whether or not they’re understanding language. That’s really the a big, big piece of the puzzle. Because if they’re not understanding language, that gives us a pretty good indication that there might be something more going on and definitely a need to get started with therapy sooner.

 

00;24;59;29 – 00;25;26;29

Brooke & Bridget

If they if a child between the age of one and two is understanding language and their receptive language seems to be completely on track, then we feel a little bit better about that. That tells us that they’re probably just a late talker. If expressive is the only area that they’re falling where they’re falling behind, then in their understanding, then we think, okay, you know, maybe we can do this wait and see approach.

 

00;25;26;29 – 00;25;51;26

Brooke & Bridget

If the parent wants to get on board and work on these strategies at home, maybe we don’t need to start speech therapy right away. Generally speaking, with a child who understands language, if they’re receptive, language is average and their expressive language is delayed. We typically start speech therapy anywhere between 18 to 24 months of age, usually before 18 months.

 

00;25;52;01 – 00;26;22;25

Brooke & Bridget

We we like to unless they’re super, super delayed. Now we’re feeding. If it’s a feeding issue which we don’t take on feeding clients, but you know, or if a child’s globally delayed, you know, motor and all of that, but typically, you know, in our private practice, I feel like we don’t usually start until about 18, 17, 18 years at the earliest because so much is happening until then, you know, you’re right.

 

00;26;22;28 – 00;26;50;03

Brooke & Bridget

It’s like between 12 and 18 months. There’s so much development that occurs. And, usually a big jump happens right around that time. So to put a child in like 13 months, if they’re only if they’re not saying any words, it’s like it may be premature. But that’s why we look at the whole child. Because if they have other issues going on, other developmental issues, history of chronic ear infections, you know, there’s so much to look at.

 

00;26;50;05 – 00;27;11;17

Dr. Mona

That’s great. Now, I was curious what your guys’s perspective because I the earliest I’ve actually had two for obviously language is, like you said, around that 18 month mark, unless I’m seeing obvious signs of global delay in terms of, you know, motor skills, fine motor, not not interactive of any kind. Right. But if it’s just speech then I’m kind of looking and we like you said so 18 months makes a lot of sense to me too.

 

00;27;11;21 – 00;27;33;00

Dr. Mona

It’s really nice talking to you guys because you’re the you’re honestly the first speech therapist I’ve ever spoken to, even as a pediatrician because, wow, normally speech therapist don’t call us or talk to us. Yeah. You got to do your own thing. We do our own thing. So this is honestly huge for me too. And I think everyone would really love hearing this because I don’t think they know that we don’t speak a lot of the times.

 

00;27;33;00 – 00;27;52;22

Dr. Mona

We obviously take care of the same children and we listen, you know, we get referral notes or whatever it may be, but this is awesome to hear your guys’s perspective and especially for my own education and my practice, to kind of say, okay, this is something that I was doing or that I’m recommending because you guys are even more specialized in this than I am.

 

00;27;52;22 – 00;27;57;28

Dr. Mona

So I really appreciate that that comment, that comment about, you know, the timing and stuff. That’s super helpful.

 

00;27;58;01 – 00;27;59;03

Brooke & Bridget

Yeah.

 

00;27;59;06 – 00;28;14;28

Dr. Mona

And and in terms of word amounts or is there is it just varies like because I, I find that the word amounts can be a little tricky. Because some kids are showing signs of receptive, you know, language, but they may not have the 20 words or the 50 words. Do you guys like to say that word amounts?

 

00;28;15;25 – 00;28;16;22

Dr. Mona

It’s. Yeah.

 

00;28;16;26 – 00;28;18;10

Brooke & Bridget

So hard. It’s it’s.

 

00;28;18;12 – 00;28;18;22

Dr. Mona

I don’t.

 

00;28;18;22 – 00;28;44;29

Brooke & Bridget

Like it. It’s a loaded question. And I feel we, we actually made a chart on our Instagram, for this. And the reason we did it is because we want kids. And, you know, this obviously, being a pediatrician, we want children meeting the milestones. Now what parents think. Right. So like for 18 months the milestone is a child saying expressively and I’m just going to speak on expressive language.

 

00;28;44;29 – 00;29;11;10

Brooke & Bridget

And that’s, you know, talking right now. But for expressive language at 18 months we would want a child saying ten words. That’s the milestone. And at 24 months, it’s a milestone of 50 words. However, what I think parents are, there’s a misunderstanding because parents are like, oh, my child saying ten words. They’re meeting the milestone. They’re my child’s great.

 

00;29;11;18 – 00;29;40;23

Brooke & Bridget

And I think oftentimes parents confuse a milestone with an average. So we made this chart showing a milestone is what most children at that age are able to do. So it’s great if your child’s meeting the milestones. We want them meeting the milestones, but we even want them going beyond that toward more of an average. So it’s a spectrum and it’s a range, but we want, you know, them to be in between that, that milestone and average range.

 

00;29;40;23 – 00;29;41;11

Brooke & Bridget

Exactly.

 

00;29;41;16 – 00;29;59;25

Dr. Mona

That is a great. Yeah, that is a great way to to say it because it’s it’s not a it’s not an endpoint. It’s an ongoing thing. And when it’s like when you give numbers and I I’m just not a number fan like in any aspect of pediatrics. How much should my baby, how many words should they say. How much, how much, how many hours should they sleep?

 

00;30;00;01 – 00;30;19;27

Dr. Mona

I actually like I’m like, stop asking how much because everybody’s different and and every it doesn’t mean like there’s a quota that we have to meet for sleep or, or for words. It’s a okay, this is where we’re at. We have to look like you guys said earlier at the big picture of a kid, how are they doing in terms of understanding one step commands or two step commands?

 

00;30;19;27 – 00;30;33;19

Dr. Mona

And how are they in terms of understanding affection? Are they making eye contact or are they pointing to get your attention? And it’s, it’s really hard to teach development for that reason on social media. So I give you guys a lot of credit because you guys do a good job, like.

 

00;30;33;21 – 00;30;34;19

Brooke & Bridget

Banging.

 

00;30;34;22 – 00;30;48;02

Dr. Mona

Down those rules, but also making it known that, hey, it’s a it’s a range and it’s a, it’s a whole child experience. It’s not a okay. Well this is good. So we’re all good. We can move on and that’s it I really appreciate that.

 

00;30;48;07 – 00;31;07;02

Brooke & Bridget

Yeah. Yeah. And just making parents feel comfortable. You know we we want parents to if their child’s meeting milestone we want them to feel comfortable and we want them to feel encouraged that they have the power and the ability to, you know, even bring them beyond that. If they get involved and know, you know, what to do at home.

 

00;31;07;05 – 00;31;28;12

Dr. Mona

Oh, this is great. Now. Oh, we got there’s so many things. I have just one question that we actually didn’t discuss, but, in terms of, bilingual, like a lot of a lot of questions I get about if I teach my baby two languages early on is a detrimental. I what are your thoughts about a kid getting spoken to in multiple language when they’re an infant or toddler?

 

00;31;28;15 – 00;31;45;27

Brooke & Bridget

Go for it. Yeah, we and we get asked this daily. This is every question you say. Yeah. We say go for it. It’s the research shows that it is beneficial to expose your child to two languages or more, it day or more. It does not cause any language delays.

 

00;31;46;00 – 00;31;46;28

Dr. Mona

 

00;31;47;00 – 00;31;59;16

Brooke & Bridget

And there’s different ways to go about it. You know, we actually have two blogs on this on our website, because it’s such a popular topic. But we always encourage parents to, to go forward with, bilingualism. Yeah.

 

00;31;59;18 – 00;32;20;08

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And actually, that’s one of our board questions. And when I took the board is that, you know, a parent is asking and doesn’t want to. What is your advice? And you say, speak. Because, yeah, there’s this misconception. And there’s also a misconception that if they are delayed, just say they spoke, Spanish and English, okay, that if they are delayed that it’s okay because they spoke two languages.

 

00;32;20;08 – 00;32;30;11

Dr. Mona

And in some ways it can be if we’re obviously seeing the receptive language. But it’s also important to understand that, hey, if there is a delay, we still need to evaluate the delay if it’s something that needs speech therapy.

 

00;32;30;13 – 00;32;59;28

Brooke & Bridget

Exactly. So we only say if your child it no matter if your child is, you know, monolingual or bilingual, they should always be meeting the milestone. So remember that milestone is what most kids can do. They should always be meeting that milestone. So like ten words for 18 months. It for a child to speak Spanish and English that may be a handful of English words and a handful of Spanish words, but they should have ten words combined in both languages.

 

00;33;00;02 – 00;33;18;10

Dr. Mona

Yeah, amazing. You guys are awesome. I’m not surprised, but you guys just speak so beautifully. I mean, it’s awesome, I love it. I can tell the passion for obviously what you do. And that’s honestly why I love this podcast so much. And, you know, I’ve been able to talk to so many amazing a lot of them have been women so far.

 

00;33;18;19 – 00;33;33;17

Dr. Mona

But I’ve been able to talk to so many amazing women who are doing such amazing things for children. So thank you. Now, is there anything, you know, kind of just general kind of advice and closing statements or anything you want to say to all our listeners right now?

 

00;33;33;20 – 00;33;53;02

Brooke & Bridget

Sure, yeah. Are we always say parents have the power. We yes. We just want to make a, confident parent of a talkative child. That’s our that’s our goal, our mission. Parents have more power than they know. And we are here to show them and encourage them. That’s right.

 

00;33;53;09 – 00;34;02;19

Dr. Mona

Yes. And yet, so briefly, tell me about, your two courses, like what are they geared towards so that our listeners, if they’re not familiar with your account, can know a little bit about your courses?

 

00;34;02;25 – 00;34;29;14

Brooke & Bridget

Yeah. So our Instagram is at Speech Sisters and then we offer two courses as well. We have one course for newborn through 14 months. And it’s a course called Talk on Track. And it’s all about teaching parents how to talk to your baby with the intent of building their language so that they meet speech and language milestones. And it’s kind of a it’s more of a proactive, course.

 

00;34;29;16 – 00;34;51;18

Brooke & Bridget

So, you know, not therapeutic really at all. It’s it’s proactive and, more of an enrichment and just educating and teaching parents, you know, what they can do to get their babies meeting these language milestones. And then our other course is called the Late Talker. And that’s designed for 15 months to 30 children, 15 months to 36 months.

 

00;34;51;20 – 00;35;15;12

Brooke & Bridget

And this course is designed for children or for parents who have children who seem to be understanding language but are not using as many words as they should. They’re not meeting those those language milestones. Or maybe they’re right there at the milestone and parents want to, like, bring them closer to the average. And it’s more of a, it’s a little more therapeutic, our strategies.

 

00;35;15;12 – 00;35;40;14

Brooke & Bridget

But what we found is, you know, even just parents that want to continue to boost their toddler’s language skills can use all of these strategies. So the late talker course is actually it’s a big seller for both kids who are late talkers and who are not, because those strategies can be used for for everything. Yeah, we we teach parents in that course, like how to get their child up, what we call the language ladder.

 

00;35;40;14 – 00;36;04;26

Brooke & Bridget

So getting them to use first words and then getting them to combine two words and then moving into three word phrases and sentences and so on, and we reveal nine speech secrets that you implement within your everyday routines that you’re already doing. Because as parents, we do not have time to sit down and do speech therapy. That is hard if you’re working and you have other kids.

 

00;36;05;01 – 00;36;09;25

Brooke & Bridget

So we teach parents how to implement these in the routines, their daily routines.

 

00;36;09;27 – 00;36;34;00

Dr. Mona

Amazing. I, I loved love, love talking to you guys. I really can’t express how grateful I am that you were able to hop on this to record, because I think it’ll help a lot of people, especially, you know, talking about those tips that you mentioned and you know, everyone listening. Their Instagram has way more of these tips, obviously their courses as well, but they talk about so many just things that you can do in your day just for one minute.

 

00;36;34;01 – 00;36;54;09

Dr. Mona

It doesn’t take a lot of time to do all this stuff. It just it’s just being impactful with the time you have. So that’s that’s what I love about your guys’s Instagram account, because, you know, you’ll talk about narrating, you know, your home tours or doing like an apartment tour. Just talking about stuff that’s happening in your home doesn’t have to be anything fancy.

 

00;36;54;09 – 00;36;55;28

Dr. Mona

And I love that. Thank you.

 

00;36;56;00 – 00;37;07;24

Brooke & Bridget

Yeah. And I think once parents get the hang of it, it just becomes the new normal, like you just. That’s how you communicate with your baby, and you’re building their language and you know how to talk to them with the intent of building their language.

 

00;37;07;27 – 00;37;14;04

Dr. Mona

Awesome. Brookee and Bridget, thank you so much. I hope you guys have a great rest of your day. And thanks for joining me today.

 

00;37;14;06 – 00;37;16;06

Brooke & Bridget

Thank you so much.

 

00;37;16;08 – 00;37;35;00

Dr. Mona

Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it. As always, please leave a review, share it with a friend, comment on my social media and if you’re not already, follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram. I love doing this for all of you. Have a great rest of your week! Take care.

 

00;37;35;02 – 00;37;35;27

Dr. Mona

Talk to you soon.