Latest / The LIFTS Podcast / Growing Our Storytellers: Starting Early with Pediatric Speech Pathologist Christy Cheviron

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Growing Our Storytellers: Starting Early with Pediatric Speech Pathologist Christy Cheviron · The LIFTS Podcast

• 0:09
  Gwyneth Hyndman - HMHB: Welcome to season six of our List podcast, where we talk about what it's like to give birth, to raise and nurture our babies and toddlers in Montana, and what it looks like to care for ourselves in this tumultuous season.
• 0:21
  Gwyneth Hyndman - HMHB: I'm Gwyneth Hyndman, storytelling coordinator for Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, the Montana Coalition, and I'm so excited to share this space with mothers, fathers, caregivers, and providers who will speak on the beautiful chaos of the zero to three years
• 0:40
  Healthy Mothers: Hi, everybody.
• 0:41
  Healthy Mothers: Today we are continuing our Growing Storytellers series with pediatric speech-language pathologist, Kristy Chevron.
• 0:49
  Healthy Mothers: Kristy is gonna be talking about what is going on in the minds of our kids and students as they are starting to put words together and make sense of the world around them, and she'll be touching on some of the challenges families are facing with cuts to funding for early intervention.
• 1:03
  Healthy Mothers: And we're also gonna be talking about the parts of encouraging reading that are fun, and also ways to approach reading and writing that might be a little outside the box.
• 1:12
  Healthy Mothers: So Kristy, can you just start by telling us who you are and what led you to speech-language pathology?
• 1:19
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): S- so I was going into college and looking for something in the health field and knew I didn't wanna be a nurse or a doctor.
• 1:26
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And originally thought I'd work with the geriatric population in hospitals, and a series of circumstances and just life events that, that happened, and just experiences working with kids led me to decide that, oh I really find this early development super interesting and decided that I liked working with kids almost better.
• 1:50
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): That shifted my trajectory, and went down the road of working with kids in schools and various settings, and then began to narrow down my focus.
• 2:01
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Especially after I had kids, I think that was where my love for early language development happened.
• 2:08
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And so I just continued to narrow my focus down to that early language development period of birth to five.
• 2:17
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah
• 2:17
  Healthy Mothers: are your children now?
• 2:19
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I have a 15-year-old, will be 16 in December, and a almost next month, 13-year-old It's hard to believe.
• 2:31
  Healthy Mothers: It goes so fast.
• 2:32
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): does
• 2:34
  Healthy Mothers: Can you just tell me, you have Alpine Start.
• 2:37
  Healthy Mothers: Tell me the story behind that name
• 2:40
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah, I'm still pretty new.
• 2:41
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So Alpine Start is the business I started I guess it was November of last year, so I'm not even at quite a year yet of being in private practice for myself.
• 2:50
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I chose Alpine Start as my name actually on a hike with my husband.
• 2:57
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): We really value the outdoors, as so many people in Montana do.
• 3:01
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I wanted to find something that kind of embodied that love of the outdoors but also my interest in the importance of early intervention, and he's a huge backcountry skier, and it was him that came up with the idea of Alpine Start, which is, in the backcountry world, and also just climbing and all sorts of outdoor adventures, that idea of you get up early and start your adventure because the earlier you start, it helps with safety, it helps with all sorts of things, and you can just enjoy your activity.
• 3:38
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So for Alpine Start, I thought,"Oh, this is perfect," because my love of early intervention it really matters getting in there early.
• 3:47
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So just like your big adventures, you have to get started early to make the best of it.
• 3:53
  Healthy Mothers: Kristi, I'm gonna back up for a minute and have you actually define what is speech pathology?
• 4:01
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I feel like there's a lot of confusion.
• 4:03
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): People are like are you a speech therapist?
• 4:04
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Are you a speech language pathologist?
• 4:07
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): What is that?" Those, those terms are interchangeable.
• 4:10
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think a speech language pathologist is a better descriptor of what I do because oftentimes when people hear speech therapist, they're thinking, oh, you help kids say their Rs and their Ss, which I do.
• 4:22
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Those are things that I work on.
• 4:24
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But language, having that language component I think is important because that's probably a bigger part of what I do, is developing those language skills.
• 4:36
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): It's a super broad field, just it's really birth to end of life, and it works on developing language skills, cognition speech sound development, fluency, voice, swallowing.
• 4:51
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): There, it is a very broad field.
• 4:54
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And that's why I think that sometimes as you get further on in your career, you start to find kind of your niche and it helps.
• 5:02
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And so for me, that, that niche has slowly narrowed its way down to early language development.
• 5:09
  Healthy Mothers: Talking about Alpine Start and the meaning of Alpine Start, can you just share with us what is going on in the brains in the zero to three years that you focus on?
• 5:22
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah, so that birth to three window is such a huge part of growth and development.
• 5:30
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): 80% of brain development happens during those first three years.
• 5:34
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): It's 90% by the age of five.
• 5:37
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So there's just so many neural connections that are being formed during that time, and this is why I think at that age kids can develop multiple languages so quickly.
• 5:47
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Their brain is just primed and ready to learn and it's super flexible, so when things aren't going as planned in development, it's much easier to get in there and make some changes because their brains are very flexible right now, and they're able to re-route those connections and create new neural connections.
• 6:10
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think I just, I was reading that They're developing one million neural connections every second during that birth to three range, so it's just mind-boggling to think about how much their brain is growing and changing during that, that time.
• 6:26
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah.
• 6:27
  Healthy Mothers: It's exciting and frightening too that their brains are that
• 6:31
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Are just little sponges.
• 6:33
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): They really are.
• 6:34
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And just to watch them, that's what I find it so fascinating.
• 6:37
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Their wheels are constantly turning, and they're just, experiencing their world.
• 6:42
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Everything is new, and to make these connections between what they're seeing and hearing and touching and moving, all those things just are so interre- related and connected that it's pretty awesome to watch.
• 6:59
  Healthy Mothers: In this conversation that we're having about early literacy, for you, from your perspective, what does early literacy look like?
• 7:10
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): It looks like building language, I feel like early on.
• 7:14
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I think that what happens when people hear early literacy, their mind immediately goes to reading.
• 7:21
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And it doesn't look like...
• 7:22
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Early literacy does not look like teaching reading.
• 7:24
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I think in fact, when we focus too early on actually learning to read, it can be counterproductive because there's a foundation that needs to be laid down in order to get to that point of reading.
• 7:40
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): It can look like, it looks like building language comprehension so that kids can understand what's being said to them, and then later be able to understand what they're reading too as they build their vocabulary.
• 7:51
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Building vocabulary through their everyday experiences, building attention, and that aids in their cognition and memory skills, which all leads to reading.
• 8:01
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Building an understanding of language structure and grammatical formation of sentences and learning about patterns of sound that we hear, like rhyming and print awareness and narrative skills.
• 8:16
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): There's so much, like learning to tell a story, learning to sequence a story being able to follow a sequence in a story.
• 8:24
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And yeah, there's lots of foundational components that are very language-based that lead to early literacy or that lead to learning to read
• 8:36
  Healthy Mothers: And why is this important?
• 8:37
  Healthy Mothers: And in talking about that, I'm talking about maybe both in the home and then also in our schools, which...
• 8:44
  Healthy Mothers: And you've also touched on this before in our just wider economy.
• 8:51
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So touching on the early literacy all, like I was saying before, they're all interconnected.
• 8:56
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So our oral language and our ability to express ourselves and u- understand language is all woven together in this, interconnected way that helps develop actually reading.
• 9:12
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And kids with language delays, as we look at kids developing language skills, they're typically more likely to need help learning to read because those skills are so linked to reading.
• 9:25
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So if we can address those skills early, sometimes that means that interventions may not be needed later on.
• 9:35
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And all that has an impact on our economy as far as, we don't have to, The cost of early intervention is way less than the cost of providing services later on in school through school interventions.
• 9:50
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And then also there are, kids that aren't able to read proficiently by the end of third grade.
• 9:56
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I saw in some statistics that they're four times more likely to drop out of high school.
• 10:00
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So you can see where if we don't address those early literacy skills early, there are implications in our economy later.
• 10:10
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): If they are dropping out of high school, then there's more supports, economic supports that are gonna be needed to support them after they drop out from high school, too.
• 10:20
  Healthy Mothers: For parents that hear this and get a little nervous do you say anything to calm them down a little bit?
• 10:26
  Healthy Mothers: Or just"Hey, it's not as intimidating as it feels right now."'Cause I know all of us are, as we're starting the school year especially and we may not even be up to third grade yet, but I know how it feels in our house.
• 10:37
  Healthy Mothers: We want, we just, we wanna get the wheels going.
• 10:40
  Healthy Mothers: Is there anything that you do to calm parents down a little bit and say"Hey it's okay,""We got this"?
• 10:47
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think that the schools my experience in the schools are, has been so great.
• 10:52
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Where I live, I think just supporting kids, and I think that parents being involved and knowing the importance of reading, I think that's key.
• 11:01
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): If they can start bringing in more reading opportunities at home and realizing that I guess not to get so stressed out at, about it, because there's other ways to bring literacy into your home than just read a book.
• 11:15
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Literacy surrounds us, so there are so many ways that you can bring that in and and help your kids.
• 11:23
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think, yes, reading, we want to incorporate that, and I think encouraging reading every day is super important.
• 11:30
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But also knowing that in your daily routines you can introduce literacy skills through reading cereal boxes, through making grocery lists, through helping cooking and looking at a recipe.
• 11:44
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): There's lots of ways to bring literacy into your daily routines
• 11:49
  Healthy Mothers: And Kristy how do parents get referred to you if it's just not, if it's just not happening?
• 11:54
  Healthy Mothers: Your kid, there's, their brains are unique, and they're interpreting words a certain way.
• 12:01
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think that there's some problem-solving that has to happen.
• 12:04
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So if we're seeing some struggle with reading, we know that reading is language-based.
• 12:08
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I think one thing that sometimes fails to happen is really diving deep into language and having a speech therapist look and evaluate.
• 12:18
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And there's specialists in...
• 12:20
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): that look at, dyslexia and can test for that.
• 12:24
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And a lot of speech therapists can focus their attention on dyslexia, which is a language-based disorder.
• 12:30
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But I think, being a detective and looking at is there an eyesight issue?
• 12:34
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Is there, how's hearing?
• 12:36
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): We have to check those boxes to see where the struggle is and potential causes for that.
• 12:42
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But I do think that often what sometimes is forgotten is that, oh, how's their language skills?
• 12:49
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Let's do a full assessment that is comprehensively looking at all their language abilities, including their narrative skills and their phonological awareness skills.
• 13:00
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): There's so many things that I th- I think that speech therapists could be a huge asset with that in, in diving deep into language that maybe that maybe is sometimes forgotten,
• 13:14
  Healthy Mothers: Just going back to the questions.
• 13:15
  Healthy Mothers: Sorry to divert.
• 13:16
  Healthy Mothers: It was
• 13:17
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Okay
• 13:17
  Healthy Mothers: my own kind of thought too, just talking with other parents, and you're thinking like, oh just, you're don't even...
• 13:24
  Healthy Mothers: for instance, last year I needed to I was just having issues with just being motivated to, to write or to work or to do things, and it, I wasn't able...
• 13:35
  Healthy Mothers: I'm 49 years old.
• 13:36
  Healthy Mothers: I wasn't able to just make the connection.
• 13:38
  Healthy Mothers: I can't see the screen.
• 13:40
  Healthy Mothers: I had to get readers.
• 13:41
  Healthy Mothers: So
• 13:41
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah
• 13:42
  Healthy Mothers: even as an adult, you don't make that connection sometimes of why something isn't, Why something is hard.
• 13:48
  Healthy Mothers: And it was just like, gosh, if I'm this age, and I'm, had this hurdle, and now it's back on track again, how hard is it for sometimes to kids to verbalize like,"I can't see," or,"I can't
• 14:00
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah.
• 14:01
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah, no, and I think that, that's another thing that sometimes goes unnoticed are vision issues.
• 14:07
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): You don't know what you don't know.
• 14:08
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): If you can't see, and you haven't been able to see your whole life maybe very well, it's just the norm.
• 14:14
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Making sure to, to those, check those boxes and make sure that vision isn't a- an issue and hearing isn't an issue is pretty important.
• 14:26
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah.
• 14:26
  Healthy Mothers: People used to make fun of me'cause I would just be like this, like looking at the screen and yeah, I was thinking,"Oh."
• 14:31
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Now, yeah, I'm the same way.
• 14:32
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I can't do anything without my readers.
• 14:34
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I'm like,"Oh.
• 14:35
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Oh, yeah.
• 14:36
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I have to have..."
• 14:37
  Healthy Mothers: start down it, that path, then
• 14:38
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Ugh
• 14:39
  Healthy Mothers: all over.
• 14:40
  Healthy Mothers: You're constantly this,
• 14:42
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yep.
• 14:43
  Healthy Mothers: Beyond test scores and success in schools, what does early literacy do for the whole child?
• 14:50
  Healthy Mothers: And what does this set up our kids up for as they become more independent and are exploring the world?
• 14:59
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think the one thing that kind of goes unnoticed too is just how much reading builds social emotional learning too.
• 15:10
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I think that reading helps kids take different perspectives and build those empathy skills, widen their world perspective and gain more world knowledge.
• 15:21
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): It's very common for kids not to travel outside of their their little community.
• 15:27
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I think that reading opens up a huge world for kids to see what it's like.
• 15:33
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): We live in a pretty homogenous area where we are.
• 15:37
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I think being able to expand that and see how other people live and diversity works and taking other people's perspectives, that's a huge part of reading that's important for all life skills.
• 15:52
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And as kids like grow and develop, they start to figure out like these intense loves and it can build that interest and help them to further explore those, those interests and build more of these kind of fringe vocabulary things that they're interested in.
• 16:11
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And that building vocabulary just improves reading.
• 16:13
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So it's they're all that back and forth with building vocabulary and building their knowledge.
• 16:19
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): It just opens up, I think, a world of opportunities for kids and adults really
• 16:26
  Healthy Mothers: How can parents create an environment where reading or literacy in the wider realm that you've talked about is a joyful experience and not something where you're just like,"Ugh"?
• 16:36
  Healthy Mothers: What are some of just options that parents have that maybe that's not their, in their, their first way of interacting with their kids.
• 16:45
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah, from my perspective for early literacy and that those young early years before school I think finding a routine that works for your family is really important.
• 16:55
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I do think reading every day and having access to books every day is important.
• 17:00
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I do know that I've worked with families that their books are very special and so they keep them out of reach, and they only get them down, if they think about it.
• 17:09
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I think anymore there's lots of ways to get books.
• 17:12
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I know books are expensive, but there's so many ways to find free books.
• 17:16
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And the Dolly Parton Imagination Station, which rest in peace, Dolly.
• 17:21
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But there's so many ways.
• 17:22
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Thrift stores.
• 17:23
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): You can find kids' books everywhere.
• 17:25
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I think taking away this idea that books are off limits until I bring them down, like having access to them at all times and also that finding a routine that works for you.
• 17:39
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): For my family, it was books were happening throughout the day.
• 17:43
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): They were always available.
• 17:44
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And following a child's lead, if they grabbed a book, then we would read a book, and it was always part of our bedtime routine.
• 17:51
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But that may not work for every family.
• 17:52
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Bedtime routines can be a chaotic and crazy time for families, so maybe it's breakfast.
• 18:00
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): You sit at breakfast and read a book while you eat.
• 18:03
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I just think being flexible in what that routine looks like for you, and work it into your own routine is important.
• 18:11
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And then meeting your child where they're at.
• 18:13
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Not every child will sit and look at a book as you read it page from page.
• 18:18
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yes, there's kids that'll do that.
• 18:20
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But more likely, kids are wanting to control the book.
• 18:24
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): They're wanting to turn pages.
• 18:25
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): They skip pages.
• 18:27
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): They don't have a huge attention span being able to adjust and we're only gonna read a few pages," or,"I can't read every word on the page, but I'm gonna talk about the pictures." And I may have to sing the book, or I may have to act it out and be silly.
• 18:46
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And all those ways.
• 18:49
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): There's there's really no wrong way to read a book.
• 18:51
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think just having the book and learning how to hold it, learning how to turn pages and starting to build a love for reading is really important.
• 19:00
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah, I was thinking about that, about how at the end of the night was chaotic.
• 19:04
  Healthy Mothers: But for us, like bath time for a few seasons of life were, they came to expect if they're taking a bath and that they wanted to have books read to them, which I, yeah, sometimes it was like,"Ugh, we've gotta get clean." There's all these tasks
• 19:19
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Too bad.
• 19:19
  Healthy Mothers: Baby tasks, yes But I did, I think there was something for my kids especially soothing about being in the water and then having the book read to them that I really enjoyed.
• 19:27
  Healthy Mothers: And now they're out of that season, but I remember there was a time where, yeah, bedtime was not where it was at for reading.
• 19:33
  Healthy Mothers: So just go with it,
• 19:35
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): yeah.
• 19:36
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah.
• 19:36
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I think I talked earlier too that literacy is in lots of different things.
• 19:40
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So you go to the grocery store, give your child a notebook, have them check items off your grocery list and, read about the things on your cereal box.
• 19:51
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): There's so many ways that you can bring reading into your daily routines.
• 19:58
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah.
• 20:00
  Healthy Mothers: Say you're a parent who doesn't enjoy reading at all, and but you want your child to flourish in school.
• 20:09
  Healthy Mothers: guidance would you offer them, and is there a way to make this a little bit easier?
• 20:16
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah, I think finding books that you both love is important.
• 20:19
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And realizing that it's a short amount of time that you can spend with your kids is important.
• 20:24
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Not being like,"Ugh, I have to read to them for an hour." So you get in 10 to 15 minutes of reading.
• 20:30
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think we can all do something for 10 to 15 minutes even if it's not something we enjoy.
• 20:36
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So keeping it short but high quality, really focusing on how you're reading maybe.
• 20:41
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And just knowing that maybe you find books for yourself, audiobooks, and your kids start to watch you learning, reading and finding, starting to develop a love for reading.
• 20:53
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And maybe it's audiobooks and they start to see, oh, mom listens to audiobooks in the car when she's driving all the time now.
• 20:59
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And just going back to singing nursery rhymes.
• 21:04
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Maybe that's more enjoyable for you is to be the actor and act it out, and that's all good.
• 21:12
  Healthy Mothers: Are some of the challenges to early literacy in policy right now.
• 21:17
  Healthy Mothers: Are there any- anything going on right now, changes that have been made to school policies that you've eye on or are watching
• 21:28
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think we're continuing to have cuts to our early intervention.
• 21:32
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And, every state has an early intervention program, and it's mandated.
• 21:37
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But each state kind of runs it differently and funds it differently, and some states put more money into their early intervention than other states.
• 21:46
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So certain states there are, there has been a real drop-off of how early intervention is provided.
• 21:54
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I guess for those that don't really know what early intervention is, it can be birth to three in states, it can be birth to five, depending on the state, but kids that qualify have a developmental delay and typically they look at five areas of development.
• 22:10
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And so it's communication, cognition, fine motor, gross motor, social, emotional.
• 22:17
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Looking at those five areas of development and depending on what the qualifications are in each state, if there's a delay in one or more areas, they can get free services, which are all home, typically home-based.
• 22:31
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And so those services could be speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy and have someone like a family support specialist that comes in and helps the family navigate this delay that they're seeing and trying to get kids developmentally up to where they should be.
• 22:49
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): The Medicaid enrollment and just the eligibility redetermination, a lot of families are having issues re-qualifying for Medicaid, which pays for therapy services.
• 23:02
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I'm seeing a lot of families get kicked off of those services that may be once qualified, or they are having a lot of trouble getting help completing their application again, or'Cause I think there's shortages in staff and that sort of thing.
• 23:18
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): They're losing coverage.
• 23:19
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): There's, increases in that private healthcare costs and, paired with the cost of living right now, increases that everyone's struggling with.
• 23:29
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I think that right now funding has really been cut to that.
• 23:33
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And if we don't address this early, like we're talking about, then it's just gonna cause problems down the road.
• 23:42
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And so for me, I think that's where we should really be putting a lot of our t- our funding is into earlier intervention to potentially not have to spend even more money down the road in elementary.
• 23:55
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I think some people are feeling like I don't know if I can afford speech therapy or physical therapy," or whatever it is that their children need.
• 24:03
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I just want families to know that there's so many options out there.
• 24:09
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So there's the Birth to Three program through, that every state has and the Montana Milestones program.
• 24:17
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So if your child qualifies and they need services, those are free of cost to families.
• 24:24
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): They cover that cost.
• 24:25
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And if you have a therapist you're already w- working with, they can make that referral for you, and you can keep that therapist.
• 24:31
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I work closely with Benchmark, who does the services for early intervention in our area, and if I'm seeing someone and I refer'em, the family can keep me, and Benchmark will...
• 24:44
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): we bill for in- insurance, and whatever is left over, parents do not have to pay it.
• 24:49
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Benchmark will pay me for those services.
• 24:52
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And then starting at age three, if your kid can qualify, there's school-based services, and those are free.
• 24:58
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And there's also private therapists off- often will offer discounts, like cash pay discounts or payment plans or can adjust and meet you where you're at.
• 25:10
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I think just encouraging families to not be afraid to ask for help.
• 25:15
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Just let therapists know where you're at and that you want this, and usually therapists are gonna try and find a way to work with you or provide resources.
• 25:23
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think right now what I'm doing is looking into compiling a list of grant opportunities for families.
• 25:30
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So there's grants out there that you can apply for to help cover the cost of therapy if you can't, if you're unable to do so and you don't have the, some of these other options.
• 25:40
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So just don't be afraid to ask your doctor or your therapist for ways to cover the cost of therapies.
• 25:47
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah.
• 25:48
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I think the other thing is reiterating that my feeling about language develop- development being the foundation for literacy, and that's, the whole thing of what we're talking about is that early literacy, and that for me, that's why I- it's early intervention is the hill I will die on.
• 26:04
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): It is so important.
• 26:07
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I think if you as a parent have concerns s- ask your doctor.
• 26:13
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But unfortunately, sometimes doctors, they see your kid for 15 minutes, and there's some doctors that still are on that let's wait and see approach.
• 26:21
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So it's okay to reach out and talk to a therapist, directly.
• 26:25
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I will take calls all the time and see if an evaluation is a right fit for you.
• 26:32
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And even if you do an evaluation and say, they're like,«Oh, no problem.
• 26:38
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Language is right where it should be,» hopefully you're gonna walk away feeling relieved, feeling like you have some strategies of how to continue developing language, and that's it.
• 26:51
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): An evaluation is play-based.
• 26:53
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): There's...
• 26:54
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): It's not scary.
• 26:56
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So if you have concerns, it's just worth seeking that out and seeing if it's, if there is something that you need to work on early.
• 27:04
  Healthy Mothers: Christie, what are some of your favorite books that your kids have loved over the years that, you might recommend to a new mom or a mom with a tot?
• 27:16
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): oh my goodness.
• 27:17
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I just, I love books so much, and I love finding that great book.
• 27:21
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): It's...
• 27:21
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I look at often pictures and as from a language standpoint if we can't, we don't have a kid that can sit and listen to the whole story, they have to have good pictures that you can talk about.
• 27:33
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I do love a good illustrated book.
• 27:36
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But when new parents have babies, I often will get Nancy Tillman books for them.
• 27:44
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): On the Night You Were Born that was the first book I bought for my oldest when I was pregnant and I bought that book.
• 27:50
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I remember looking at it and reading it in the bookstore and sobbing in the store.
• 27:57
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And to this day, I still can barely get through the book and not cry when I read it.
• 28:03
  Healthy Mothers: We will have links to this in the show notes of the books, so
• 28:06
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And she has lots of other really lovely, beautiful books that I have multiple ones of those too.
• 28:12
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And the, the pictures are just gorgeous.
• 28:15
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think then toddler, as we get in a little older, the Sandra Boynton books, like Moo, Baa, La La.
• 28:21
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Those are great for speech development.
• 28:23
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Super simple board books, funny.
• 28:25
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Kids really love those.
• 28:28
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I- as they get older too, even to that preschool age rhyming books are so important for that developing phonological awareness, so that sound patterns, and learning to rhyme is a big part of literacy.
• 28:43
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Chris Van Dusen, he writes a lot of fun, silly rhyming books, but A Camping Spree with Mr.
• 28:50
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): McGee is one of my favorites that, that he wrote.
• 28:55
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah, Oliver Jeffers, another really good author.
• 28:58
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): He...
• 28:58
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I love his book Stuck, Up and Down, and the, the illustrations on it are also very silly and kids typically love those.
• 29:07
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I could probably go on and on, but
• 29:11
  Healthy Mothers: What are you reading yourself right now?
• 29:13
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Oh gosh, what am I reading right now?
• 29:16
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I'm terrible at remembering the names of books.
• 29:18
  Healthy Mothers: Or how,
• 29:18
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I-
• 29:19
  Healthy Mothers: read?
• 29:20
  Healthy Mothers: Do you, are you audio or do you do a mix of audio and print?
• 29:23
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I've just gotten back on the audiobook train again.
• 29:27
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I did for a while, and then I ended my subscription'cause it got too expensive with Audible.
• 29:32
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And so now I'm on Spotify again, and I've been obsessed with a couple audiobooks.
• 29:38
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I just got finished listening to The Calamity Club.
• 29:42
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And it was a long one, and in fact, I was getting so mad because you have a certain amount of time that you can listen in a month, and I kept getting the,"You have reached your limit." And I've been driving my family crazy because I'm constantly if I'm cooking dinner, I'm listening to this audiobook, and now when I'm hiking, I listen to it.
• 30:02
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So that's been a new love for me is the audiobook.
• 30:05
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But I typically am always got some, some book.
• 30:08
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I l- I really love to read.
• 30:09
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I have a friend that's a big reader, and she's my go-to.
• 30:12
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): She's always got a book to share with me, so
• 30:15
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah, I'm the same.
• 30:16
  Healthy Mothers: I find, too, like I also love, aud- audiobooks when I'm at the gym or out for a walk or driving.
• 30:23
  Healthy Mothers: But there's something about print books, too, that I find really relaxing.
• 30:27
  Healthy Mothers: I feel like it's a part of my brain that just turns off to every other thing, and I'm just really focused on the page.
• 30:34
  Healthy Mothers: It is almost like a meditation sometimes, just reading.
• 30:37
  Healthy Mothers: I've thought about this, too, about even my online subscriptions to like news outlets.
• 30:41
  Healthy Mothers: It's like, man, I remember, house-sitting for some friends, and they had The Wall Street Journal, and that was, like, a beautiful thing just to walk down the hill, get the newspaper, come back, and read it in print rather than just on a screen.
• 30:56
  Healthy Mothers: There is something different about reading on a screen and reading in print, and I don't know what that is, but I just, it, and I feel like my brain just focuses just on that when I'm reading.
• 31:06
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I'm team print too.
• 31:08
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I have to have a book.
• 31:09
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I can't do the e-reader.
• 31:11
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I don't enjoy it as much.
• 31:13
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): There is something for me about holding a book and my, my problem, I do relax so much at night, but my eye anymore, read two pages and then I'm asleep.
• 31:23
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So it takes me longer than it probably should to read a book.
• 31:27
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But when I have more time reading during the day I feel like is such a luxury, and I would love to be able to do that, that more, and I probably can, could make the time
• 31:40
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah, same.
• 31:42
  Healthy Mothers: As we're wrapping up, is there any areas or angles or topics that you just wanted to touch on?
• 31:48
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think that as far as strategies for early literacy too, we talked a little bit about, following their lead and even for babies, just letting them chew on books.
• 32:00
  Healthy Mothers: so many chewed on books in our house.
• 32:02
  Healthy Mothers: What are their minds doing when they're doing that?
• 32:05
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): That's them exploring, and figuring out, and making this connection of what this thing is.
• 32:10
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And that I find really interesting.
• 32:12
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): If you give a book to I don't know what age this happens, but like I used to do this'cause I found it really interesting, is give a book upside down to a toddler, and they get to a point, and this is like such an early literacy thing, where they turn it around.
• 32:27
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): They've learned, what way is right, and how to hold a book too.
• 32:31
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): If you give it to them with the pages on the other side, like they flip it over,'cause they know that pages turn from right to left.
• 32:38
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So those things like that being able to explore a book and talking about the parts of a book, that this is the cover, and here's the title of the book.
• 32:47
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And tracking, tracking words with your finger I think is really important too.
• 32:54
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I, don't do it all the time, because you can't do it all the time.
• 32:57
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But if you've got a little one that's interested in a book that you've read 500 times, there's those books, let's start, like reading and pointing to the words as you read.
• 33:08
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): That brings that awareness to the print.
• 33:11
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And also I think one thing we didn't talk about that sometimes get lost is also the writing.
• 33:19
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): That's also part of literacy.
• 33:20
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So making sure that you are giving your kids the opportunity to scribble with crayons and, put a pencil to paper, and start some of those early writing skills.
• 33:34
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Again, we don't jump s- straight to writing.
• 33:36
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): We gotta start with scribbling, and having that opportunity to pretend to write.
• 33:41
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And it's just like they're gonna pretend to talk.
• 33:45
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): You get that gibberish.
• 33:46
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): They start scribbling and pretend to write sentences too.
• 33:50
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So there's so many ways, I think, in play that you can also incorporate early literacy through pretending to play in a kitchen, and having menus, and all sorts of things.
• 34:03
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): That's all literacy development.
• 34:07
  Healthy Mothers: Christie, if someone wanted to get in touch with you or had any questions, first of all, how does the referral process work for you?
• 34:18
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): If parents have concerns, I always say reach out.
• 34:21
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): You can reach out to me.
• 34:23
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I have a website, alpinestartspeechtherapy.com.
• 34:27
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I'm happy to chat with people a- and, consult with them on the phone and just decide if this is the right route or, I know a lot of people in the community and can direct people elsewhere if there's a better fit.
• 34:40
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But you can reach out.
• 34:43
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I will oftentimes we all need a referral from doctors too, so I do get referrals from doctors sometimes that parents can request, or I often will call doctors and say,"Hey, I have a parent reach out to me with concerns, and would it be possible to get a referral for a evaluation?" And so that's typically how I start.
• 35:03
  Healthy Mothers: Kristy, thank you so much for your time.
• 35:05
  Healthy Mothers: I really appreciate it.
• 35:06
  Healthy Mothers: And this was really...
• 35:07
  Healthy Mothers: It's funny'cause we're, right in the thick of it right now when both my kids just entered public school for the first time last couple weeks.
• 35:16
  Healthy Mothers: So we're in the, just the reading, and the one is going into kindergarten, one is in first grade.
• 35:23
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Oh, good
• 35:24
  Healthy Mothers: Reading is at the top of kinda my mind right now, so I feel like all these questions I'm asking are questions I'm thinking about too, and, just good reminders of how to nurture that love of reading, which my mom did that for me growing up, and that was...
• 35:41
  Healthy Mothers: I did not excel in many things growing up and, but reading, I was a reader.
• 35:47
  Healthy Mothers: And I loved how that opened up that world to me.
• 35:49
  Healthy Mothers: Swimming I can't wait until they can swim and they, it opens up worlds of...
• 35:56
  Healthy Mothers: yeah, so I feel the same way about reading right now.
• 35:58
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I feel like it's so magical.
• 35:59
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): There's this switch that happens with them when they do start to read, and it's like, whoa.
• 36:05
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I remember the first time my, my son was an early reader and remember being at a restaurant and him looking at the menu and started, like, reading off the things on the menu, and I was like, what?
• 36:17
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): No idea.
• 36:18
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): This is what I do for a living, and I had no idea that he was actually reading at that point.
• 36:24
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): But yeah, I think there's like a, a switch goes off where everything just makes sense, and it is really a magical thing to see.
• 36:32
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I have moments now, I do, I miss reading with my babies, just that shared book reading.
• 36:37
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And I know there's lots of people that do it well as their kids get older.
• 36:42
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Mine have not shown a interest or they don't want their mommy reading to them anymore, at 15 and 13, but I do miss that.
• 36:51
  Healthy Mothers: You talked about play being part of literacy too, and that is not an area that I enjoy or I'm good at.
• 37:00
  Healthy Mothers: But reading to the girls is something I really love, and we've gone in and out of it being requested or tolerated or enjoyed.
• 37:11
  Healthy Mothers: Right now we're in a nice, sweet spot, but it hasn't always been this way.
• 37:15
  Healthy Mothers: But I am also aware, on one hand, Jesse everything that I'm preparing for her for is I'm preparing her for not having me read to her.
• 37:23
  Healthy Mothers: And also going back to my memories of what did I love?
• 37:26
  Healthy Mothers: I'm trying to read, Little House in the Big Woods right now to her, and some of these books too are a little dark some of them, and...
• 37:34
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): definitely.
• 37:35
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah, so.
• 37:36
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I completely, that Little House on the Prairie, that's funny.
• 37:39
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I love that series, and I tried to read that with my daughter, I remember, and she was like,"I don't want." And I'm like,"What?" And even now.
• 37:47
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So that was, ages, years ago and they, there's a new on Netflix, there's like a new Little House on the Prairie series, and I'm like,"Let's watch it." And nope, she wants nothing to do with it.
• 37:58
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): So I don't know what I did to scar her on Little House on the Prairie, but
• 38:02
  Healthy Mothers: I almost feel like I have to play it cool with books sometimes.
• 38:04
  Healthy Mothers: I can't get too excited about it or else they'll know how much it means to me to read this to them, and then the game is over.
• 38:10
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think that's, that must have been what I did,'cause the same with Charlotte's Web.
• 38:13
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I tried Charlotte's Web, and she refused that book.
• 38:17
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Anything with animals in it books or shows, she does not wanna read anything about animals'cause she's afraid something bad's gonna happen to them, which sometimes in books it does happen.
• 38:30
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah, and that is another, that was another kind of tr- small trauma a little bit when I started reading Charlotte's Web.
• 38:36
  Healthy Mothers: Oh yeah, that first chapter is there's some hard conversations happening there.
• 38:41
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah, and then the other one I've been like dying to read to them, and I've started is Misty of Chincoteague.
• 38:47
  Healthy Mothers: Am I pronouncing it right?
• 38:48
  Healthy Mothers: It...
• 38:49
  Healthy Mothers: do you know?
• 38:49
  Healthy Mothers: It was like a Margaret Henry book.
• 38:50
  Healthy Mothers: She did like Justin Morgan Had a Horse.
• 38:53
  Healthy Mothers: I was a horsey girl growing up, But it was a story about the wild horses on the islands off of Maryland and some kids swimming them over, and it's like based on a true...
• 39:03
  Healthy Mothers: But there is a wild horse race on those islands in July every year, and I thought,"I wanna take my girls to this," but we have to read the book first.
• 39:13
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Like that in itself again, like that literacy and linking things from a book to real life is so huge for kids to make that connection of"Oh, remember when we did this?
• 39:24
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And that's what this book is about." Making that connection is I think really solidifies a love of books and seeing how it connects to their own life is really important.
• 39:36
  Healthy Mothers: Okay, one of my first real memories when you think about things that shaped your life, we read the last chapter of Little House in the Big Woods on the first night of a camping trip from California up the Oregon coast.
• 39:48
  Healthy Mothers: And I remember just, like I still can smell and see and I can taste the granola bars.
• 39:55
  Healthy Mothers: I can smell, I can feel what, the back of our VW van the seats, those scratchy seats that we had.
• 40:02
  Healthy Mothers: I can still see, the different trees passing me by.
• 40:05
  Healthy Mothers: And I think tying it to books for me m- gave me a love of books.
• 40:09
  Healthy Mothers: I remember that trip.
• 40:10
  Healthy Mothers: And then it also just gave me a love of travel as well.
• 40:13
  Healthy Mothers: I think that was, love doing that.
• 40:15
  Healthy Mothers: I can't wait to do that with my girls more as, as we start to do more, as the enjoyment of reading is starting to set in for them.
• 40:24
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Did you read My Side of the Mountain as a kid?
• 40:26
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): That was one of my, oh, it was one of my all-time favorites, and that was...
• 40:31
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): It's about a boy who leaves his, New York City life and goes into the Catskills and lives inside of an old tree.
• 40:40
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And it's always one of my favorite books, and I can remember reading that and then going and acting it out like I was still in that pretend play.
• 40:50
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Going into a tree and finding acorns and trying to smash them,'Cause he made acorn pancakes or something.
• 40:57
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And just acting out the book through following that.
• 41:01
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): That was a big one for me.
• 41:03
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah.
• 41:03
  Healthy Mothers: Oh, okay.
• 41:03
  Healthy Mothers: My Side of the Mountain.
• 41:04
  Healthy Mothers: Okay, I'll also find that.
• 41:05
  Healthy Mothers: We'll put that in show notes as well too, thanks for geeking out with
• 41:08
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Yeah.
• 41:09
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Love it.
• 41:10
  Healthy Mothers: What do you love about your job?
• 41:12
  Healthy Mothers: What gives you joy?
• 41:14
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I get to play.
• 41:16
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I get to play with kids and watch these connections being made with understanding language, but also this, their ability to finally express themselves and get their needs met.
• 41:33
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): And support parents.
• 41:35
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): I think that's also one of the things that I love doing with early intervention is coaching parents.
• 41:41
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): They know their kids best so providing them with strategies and how to tweak some of the things they're doing to support language maybe a little bit more and just meet them where they're at is really a joy.
• 41:57
  Christy Cheviron (she/her): Because I'm a parent, I know things are hard sometimes, and having a little support can go a long way
• 42:12
  Gwyneth Hyndman, HMHB-MT: The Lifts podcast is hosted by Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, the Montana Coalition, a nonprofit organization out of Helena, Montana dedicated to the health and wellbeing of families expecting and raising little ones.
• 42:26
  Gwyneth Hyndman, HMHB-MT: Opinions and views expressed in these interviews do not necessarily represent the views expressed by HMHB as an organization.
• 42:35
  Gwyneth Hyndman, HMHB-MT: If you have a topic or a story you would love to see covered on our podcast, or if you have any feedback on a podcast that has aired, you can contact me at gwyneth@hmhb-mt.org.
• 42:47
  Gwyneth Hyndman, HMHB-MT: You can also go right to our website at hmhb-mt.org.
• 42:53
  Gwyneth Hyndman, HMHB-MT: We look forward to hearing from you