ClearlySpeaking Therapy

Hello Parents!
We are hard at work developing our website, part of which will include information about local health professionals, schools, and others who work with your children. While we have some of our “favorites,” we would love some help creating a list of recommended providers in the area! So we will start with those we frequently recommend:

Pediatricians:
Farrell Pediatrics www.farrellpediatrics.com

Reston Pediatrics www.restonpediatrics.com

Reston Town Center Pediatrics www.rtcpeds.com

Pediatric Dentist:
Dr. Niloo www.oaktonsmiles.com

Psychologists:
Mind Well Psychology http://www.mindwellpsychology.com/

Please post any information about your favorite pediatricians, occupational therapists, physical therapists, advocates, dentists, schools, and other service providers. Thank you for your help!

Check out our website: www.clearlyspeakingtherapy.com
Thanks for looking!

Debbie and I gave a presentation last week for Reston Hospital’s Toddler Mom Group. We wanted to share some of the information that we included. A comprehensive list of milestones will be added to our website soon!

Children vary in their development of speech and language. There is, however, a natural progression for mastery of these skills.

12 months to 18 months

• Attends to a book or toy for about 2 minutes
• Follows simple directions
• Answers simple questions non-verbally
• Points to objects, pictures and family members
• Has an expressive vocabulary of 3 to 20 or more words to label a person or object
• Tries to imitate simple words
• Uses adult-like intonational patterns
• Produces mostly unintelligible speech
• Requests more of desired items

18 months- 24 months:

• Uses words more frequently than jargon
• Has an expressive vocabulary of 50-100 or more words
• Has a receptive vocabulary of 300 or more words
• Points to simple body parts such as “nose”, “eyes”, “toes”
• Understands simple verbs such as “eat” and “sleep”
• Asks for common foods by name
• Makes the sounds of familiar animals such as “moo”
• Starts to combine words such as “more milk”, “mommy book”
• Begins to use pronouns such as “mine”
• Uses some 1-2 word questions (“Where’s kitty?”; What’s that?”).
• Waves good-bye
• Starts to follow 2-part commands (e.g. “Get your cup and give it to me.”)
• Gives a toy when asked 
• Anwers “what’s that?” questions
• Enjoys listening to stories

 24-30 months

 Vocabulary grows significantly during 2^nd year. Has expressive vocabulary of 50-250 or more words

• Has receptive vocabulary of 450-900 words
• Uses 2-3 word phrases (nouns and verbs) to talk about and ask for things (e.g. “mommy go”, “dog eat”)
• Uses action words (e.g. sit, eat, cry, sleep, kick, throw)
• Responds verbally to simple questions (e.g. “Where’s mommy?”)
• Understands prepositions (e.g. in, on, under)
• Understands “big, little”
• Responds to self by pronouns consistently (I, me, my)
• Asks questions like “Mommy go?” or “Bye bye?”
• Uses negation, e.g. no, don’t, not
• Starts to use past tense

 30-36 months

• Gives first name and holds up fingers to tell age
• States gender
• Forms some plurals by adding “s”; book, books
• Uses some prepositions
• Names everyday objects
• Uses present progressive –ing verbs, e.g. eating banana
• Exhibits multiple grammatical errors
• Points to pictures in a book when named
• Tries to get adult attention: “watch me”
• Enjoys listening to stories, songs, and rhymes
• Responds to some yes/no questions
•  Asks “where”, “what” and “who” questions
• Talks in sentences of 3-5 words
• Recites some nursery rhymes
• Follows three-step unrelated commands (e.g., “Get your ball, give baby a drink and push the car.”)
• Answers “wh” questions (who, what, where)

Speech

Clearly Speaking Therapy is a private pediatric speech and language practice. Keira Eyre, M.S., CCC-SLP and Debbie Jones, M.Ed, CCC-SLP are Speech-Language Pathologists specializing in the treatment of children.