Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #514 Speech & Language Development With Caitlin O'Meara
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
- 0:05Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the.
- 0:07Speaker 1: Time poor parent who just wants answers Now.
- 0:10Speaker 3: Hello, This is doctor Justin Coulson, the founder of Happy
- 0:13Speaker 3: Families dot com dot u and the parenting expert on
- 0:15Speaker 3: Channel Line's Parental Guidance Season two coming soon. Kaitline O'Meara
- 0:21Speaker 3: is a speech pathologist and the WA State manager at
- 0:24Speaker 3: Allied Health Company Physio Inc. She joins me in just
- 0:27Speaker 3: a Moment to talk about kids and speech difficulties, speech delays,
- 0:31Speaker 3: language challenges, and everything related to what comes out of
- 0:36Speaker 3: our children's mouth. And I want to have a chat
- 0:38Speaker 3: with Caitlin because many years ago, one of my kids,
- 0:41Speaker 3: for about the first maybe five years, perhaps even six
- 0:44Speaker 3: years of her life, nobody could understand a word that
- 0:46Speaker 3: she said. I mean massive, massive speech and language challenges.
- 0:50Speaker 3: Even Kylie and I were only able to understand her
- 0:54Speaker 3: from time to time. It meant that when she went
- 0:56Speaker 3: to school with this speech and language challenge, she wasn't
- 0:59Speaker 3: able to make friends. Nobody wanted to talk to her
- 1:01Speaker 3: because you and she just couldn't that that was how
- 1:04Speaker 3: she talked. It was kind of like grunts and groans
- 1:06Speaker 3: and uh uh uh, which was terribly uncomfortable for us,
- 1:10Speaker 3: but it was also horrible for her. Not only did
- 1:12Speaker 3: she struggle to make friends, but we experienced all kinds
- 1:15Speaker 3: of behavioral issues because she felt frustrated we couldn't understand her,
- 1:19Speaker 3: nobody could help her. She couldn't get access to the
- 1:21Speaker 3: things that she needed and wanted, and.
- 1:23Speaker 2: It made life very, very challenging.
- 1:26Speaker 3: There are a lot of kids around this country, around
- 1:28Speaker 3: the world who experience similar kinds of challenges, and that's
- 1:31Speaker 3: why I wanted to have a chat with Caitlyn today
- 1:33Speaker 3: to see if we can help parents whose kids might
- 1:35Speaker 3: be in those situations. What do we need to know
- 1:37Speaker 3: about how our children's speech and language develops, what's the
- 1:41Speaker 3: difference between speech and language and is it important?
- 1:44Speaker 2: And a whole lot more.
- 1:45Speaker 3: Caitlyn, thanks so much for joining me this morning on
- 1:46Speaker 3: the Happy Families podcast.
- 1:48Speaker 2: It's so nice to talk to you.
- 1:50Speaker 1: Hi, justin thank you for having me on. It's very
- 1:52Speaker 1: exciting to be here.
- 1:53Speaker 3: So let's dive straight into it. Speech language they're different.
- 1:57Speaker 3: Tell us how and why?
- 1:59Speaker 1: Yes, so speeches the actual words that we're using and
- 2:03Speaker 1: the articulation of those words, and then language is more
- 2:07Speaker 1: our vocabulary, so they are very different, but most people
- 2:11Speaker 1: do group them into the same category.
- 2:13Speaker 3: Okay, so when we talk about our kids' speech difficulties,
- 2:16Speaker 3: that means that they're not using their mouth properly or
- 2:19Speaker 3: they can't form the words, whereas the language is the
- 2:22Speaker 3: capacity to find the words that need to be said.
- 2:25Speaker 1: That's correct.
- 2:26Speaker 3: Yes, Okay, great, let's talk about milestones. At what point
- 2:29Speaker 3: do we start to see speech and language developing kids.
- 2:32Speaker 3: Let's go through those first kind of well, I mean,
- 2:35Speaker 3: it all really happens in the first three years, So
- 2:37Speaker 3: let's step through those first couple of years and talk
- 2:40Speaker 3: about how kids experience the development of speech and language.
- 2:45Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, So at about twelve months old, you can
- 2:49Speaker 1: expect your child to be understanding about ten words. They're
- 2:53Speaker 1: going to respond to their name. They will also recognize
- 2:57Speaker 1: words like high and by. They should be saying one
- 3:00Speaker 1: or two words, and then we actually see that jump
- 3:03Speaker 1: right up at about eighteen months to about six to
- 3:06Speaker 1: twenty words.
- 3:07Speaker 3: I've got to interrupt you there, just to highlight like
- 3:10Speaker 3: a lot of parents they really want their kids to
- 3:12Speaker 3: get on with this, right, but you're essentially saying that
- 3:15Speaker 3: for the first twelve months, they're not going to say
- 3:17Speaker 3: anything like the kids don't look at it and say,
- 3:19Speaker 3: you know, I'm pretty uncomfortable.
- 3:20Speaker 2: The nappy rash is getting a bit much mum and.
- 3:24Speaker 3: Start to burn. If you could just change that before me, now,
- 3:27Speaker 3: that'd be great. They don't know how to articulate that.
- 3:29Speaker 3: My sister keeps on pinching me when you're not looking.
- 3:31Speaker 3: That's why I'm crying. They can't tell us any of that. Right,
- 3:33Speaker 3: twelve months exactly right, right.
- 3:36Speaker 1: That is right. However, they will be communicating in other ways,
- 3:39Speaker 1: so even though they might not be using words, they'll
- 3:42Speaker 1: be using sounds, they'll be using gesture, they might be vocalizing,
- 3:46Speaker 1: So there are different ways that your baby will be
- 3:49Speaker 1: communicating with you. It's just won't be words until about
- 3:52Speaker 1: that twelve month mark.
- 3:53Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, And then they get a couple of
- 3:55Speaker 3: words from around about that one year where they start
- 3:57Speaker 3: to say mum, mum, mum, or dad, dad, dad, that's right.
- 4:01Speaker 1: And then when we get up to two years old,
- 4:04Speaker 1: we're starting to see quite a lot more development, I
- 4:07Speaker 1: suppose in that speech and language space. So your child
- 4:10Speaker 1: will probably have about fifty words. They'll also start to
- 4:13Speaker 1: combine words, so two words at a time, which is
- 4:17Speaker 1: very exciting for parents because that's the start of sentences obviously,
- 4:21Speaker 1: but they'll also be understanding a lot more too, so
- 4:23Speaker 1: they'll be able to understand what questions where questions, they
- 4:27Speaker 1: might recognize body parts if you're reading books with them,
- 4:30Speaker 1: they'll be able to recognize familiar items or pictures in
- 4:34Speaker 1: those books as well, and they'll be able to follow
- 4:38Speaker 1: really simple instructions.
- 4:39Speaker 3: So from an applied point of view, I remember reading
- 4:42Speaker 3: and I did a little bit of speech and language
- 4:43Speaker 3: stuff when I was doing my undergrad studies because ed
- 4:47Speaker 3: overlapsed with a bit of psychology there, and I remember
- 4:49Speaker 3: reading that if you want to help your children to
- 4:51Speaker 3: develop their speech and language, one of the most important
- 4:55Speaker 3: things you can do is basically spend all day being
- 4:58Speaker 3: the tour guide. Point things out and describe them. So
- 5:01Speaker 3: you don't just say look at the dog. You say
- 5:03Speaker 3: look at the black dog, or look at the brown dog,
- 5:05Speaker 3: look at the brindle dog. You talk about the blue
- 5:08Speaker 3: sky or the yellow sun, or you talk about the
- 5:10Speaker 3: green ball. So you want to be nice and descriptive
- 5:13Speaker 3: and get that happening. Is there anything else that parents
- 5:16Speaker 3: can do to accelerate their kid's capacity to use their words?
- 5:20Speaker 2: And express themselves.
- 5:23Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, So that's a really interesting point that you made.
- 5:26Speaker 1: I guess being the narrator of your child's life is
- 5:29Speaker 1: a really good tip to do, especially when you're wanting
- 5:32Speaker 1: to encourage language, because one of the things that we
- 5:34Speaker 1: want to avoid is instructing a child to say a word,
- 5:39Speaker 1: and there's a few different reasons that we don't want
- 5:41Speaker 1: to do that. But instead of is that, we want
- 5:43Speaker 1: to comment, and like what you mentioned, commenting using a
- 5:45Speaker 1: range of different words, such as descriptive words or action words,
- 5:49Speaker 1: so that they can start combining words together. So instead
- 5:53Speaker 1: of truck, we might then add a word and say
- 5:56Speaker 1: you're pushing the truck. So we've given them that action
- 5:59Speaker 1: word wall where doing that action as well, so that
- 6:02Speaker 1: we're providing the context and they're starting to understand what
- 6:05Speaker 1: that word means before they can then go and use it.
- 6:08Speaker 3: So that also reminds me, Caitlin of the No I
- 6:10Speaker 3: can't remember what it's called. I think it's called overgeneralization.
- 6:13Speaker 3: So a child will learn that this is what a
- 6:15Speaker 3: dog looks like, but then anything that looks like a dog,
- 6:18Speaker 3: so a cat or a cow or anything, they're just dog.
- 6:20Speaker 2: Dog dog. Everything's dog.
- 6:22Speaker 1: Right, that's right, that's really common. Yes, they start to recognize, Oh,
- 6:26Speaker 1: that animal there has four legs and a tail. It
- 6:28Speaker 1: must mean it's a dog.
- 6:29Speaker 2: Yeah, same features.
- 6:30Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Over time, as we as adults
- 6:34Speaker 1: model what the words are for these different items or objects,
- 6:39Speaker 1: that your child will begin to learn the difference between
- 6:41Speaker 1: the two and start to discriminate and use the correct term.
- 6:44Speaker 3: Now, presumably we don't say, no, it's not a dog,
- 6:47Speaker 3: it's a cow. Get it right, we don't get cranky
- 6:50Speaker 3: at what's the best way to help them to understand
- 6:53Speaker 3: that they have over generalized.
- 6:55Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. So you just jump in and you
- 6:57Speaker 1: would use the correct term instead. Oh, I can see
- 7:00Speaker 1: that's a cat. Oh that's a really you know, fluffy cat.
- 7:04Speaker 1: Whatever you might be saying, and you probably would want
- 7:07Speaker 1: to try and repeat that correct word about three times
- 7:11Speaker 1: so that you've modeled it a lot. And kids need
- 7:13Speaker 1: a lot of repetitions. So model, model, model those words,
- 7:17Speaker 1: but also then waiting in anticipation to give your child
- 7:20Speaker 1: the opportunity to say the correct word, but without the
- 7:24Speaker 1: correct pressure for them to actually say it. So if
- 7:26Speaker 1: they don't say it, that's time we move on, because
- 7:29Speaker 1: it is about that positive interaction at the end of
- 7:31Speaker 1: the day too. Interaction comes before communications.
- 7:35Speaker 2: So yeah, I love that. I love that.
- 7:36Speaker 3: Okay, so let's keep going through these timeframes. So we've
- 7:38Speaker 3: got kids up to well, we're up to about age three.
- 7:41Speaker 2: Now.
- 7:41Speaker 3: This is, if I'm remembering correctly, this is the bit
- 7:44Speaker 3: where kids start to I can't remember what the term
- 7:47Speaker 3: for it is, but instead of saying I jumped, they'll
- 7:50Speaker 3: say I jumped it. Like they extend their words, they
- 7:53Speaker 3: get all of the prefixes and suffixes wrong.
- 7:56Speaker 2: What do we call that?
- 7:58Speaker 1: Yeah, so at three, starting to use past tense and
- 8:01Speaker 1: they're starting to talk about, oh I shouldn't they use
- 8:03Speaker 1: past tense, they start to talk about things in the past,
- 8:06Speaker 1: but their grammar is not correctly used. So that's why
- 8:10Speaker 1: we get jumped it instead of jumped. So that's really
- 8:14Speaker 1: really common at around three years old, and it's expected
- 8:18Speaker 1: to be seen.
- 8:19Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 8:19Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's not like you've child's got a speech
- 8:21Speaker 3: or language problem at that point. It's just the way
- 8:24Speaker 3: their language is developing, and they'll get there eventually.
- 8:27Speaker 1: That's right. They haven't they haven't applied the correct grammatical
- 8:30Speaker 1: forms to the words that they are starting to learn,
- 8:34Speaker 1: and mostly it's really common with those verbs, so jumping
- 8:39Speaker 1: becomes jumped or jump even as well. So we're looking
- 8:43Speaker 1: at the past tense as well as the current tense too,
- 8:48Speaker 1: So that comes with time.
- 8:49Speaker 3: Yeah, So what I've noticed, Caitlin is that around about
- 8:52Speaker 3: if child's developing along the typical timeframe, somewhere around the
- 8:56Speaker 3: age of three to four, they've got this fairly expensive vocabulary,
- 9:01Speaker 3: they're easily understood, they're obviously mobile, and a lot of
- 9:04Speaker 3: parents start to treat their children like they're fully capable
- 9:07Speaker 3: and fully competent, and the expectations go up a lot.
- 9:10Speaker 2: But this doesn't always work out right.
- 9:13Speaker 3: Like I mentioned at the start of the podcast, I've
- 9:15Speaker 3: got a daughter who had some really significant challenges.
- 9:18Speaker 2: When should a parent start to worry.
- 9:22Speaker 3: Seek help, talk to a speechee or a GP or
- 9:25Speaker 3: a health professional about their children's speech or language challenges.
- 9:30Speaker 2: What are the warning signs?
- 9:32Speaker 1: Yeah, So, as children grow, they should be learning new skills,
- 9:36Speaker 1: and if they're not learning those new skills, then often
- 9:39Speaker 1: they may not be meeting those developmental milestones, regardless of
- 9:42Speaker 1: whether that's within the communication realm or gross motor realm.
- 9:47Speaker 1: And any time that they're not meeting those communication milestones
- 9:50Speaker 1: or they're developmental milestones, would be beason to have concern
- 9:54Speaker 1: in saying that if they are meeting those developmental milestones
- 9:57Speaker 1: and you, as a parent still have concerns, then it's
- 10:01Speaker 1: really recommended that you trust that you guys are the
- 10:03Speaker 1: experts on your children. So we would then encourage you
- 10:07Speaker 1: to go and speak with your child's doctor to voice
- 10:10Speaker 1: your concerns, and they'll often then recommend or encourage you
- 10:13Speaker 1: to go and get a speak pathology assessment completed. And
- 10:18Speaker 1: I guess some of the general red flags, apart from
- 10:21Speaker 1: looking at developmental milestones that should be met at different stages,
- 10:25Speaker 1: would be things like if there was a really big
- 10:27Speaker 1: loss or change in skill development, if they're not interacting
- 10:32Speaker 1: very well with other adults or other kids, if they're
- 10:35Speaker 1: not responding to visual stimuli, or if they're not responding
- 10:39Speaker 1: to sounds. So if you're standing behind them and you've
- 10:41Speaker 1: said their name and they're not turning around or making
- 10:43Speaker 1: any any acknowledgment that you've said something, So those are
- 10:49Speaker 1: some more general type red flags that would be caused
- 10:53Speaker 1: for concern as well.
- 10:54Speaker 3: Talking with Caitlin o' mirror Caitlin is involved with the
- 10:59Speaker 3: Allied Health Company Physio Inc. Where she's the WA State Manager.
- 11:03Speaker 3: After the break, we're going to have a conversation about
- 11:06Speaker 3: how we can communicate better with our child to help
- 11:08Speaker 3: them to develop their speech and language.
- 11:11Speaker 2: As well as the current challenge.
- 11:13Speaker 3: That we're facing because if your kids need help, there's
- 11:15Speaker 3: a bit of a speechy shortage. We'll find out what
- 11:19Speaker 3: we can do about those issues and more right after
- 11:22Speaker 3: the brain The unhealthy, unhelpful boy code that is rampant
- 11:29Speaker 3: in our children's school and social environments encourages some persistent
- 11:33Speaker 3: and dangerous ideas about what it means to be mailed.
- 11:36Speaker 3: But the Building Better Boys webinar is here to help
- 11:39Speaker 3: unpack these cultural ideas and help guide our boys to be.
- 11:43Speaker 2: Brilliant, beautiful, and even better.
- 11:46Speaker 3: Building Better Boys is available today online at Happy Families
- 11:49Speaker 3: dot com dot au. It's the Happy Families podcast, the
- 11:53Speaker 3: podcast for the time poor parent who just wants answers.
- 11:55Speaker 3: Now Today I'm having a delightful conversation with Caitlin Amer,
- 11:59Speaker 3: speelogist and the WA State Manager at Allied Health Company
- 12:02Speaker 3: Physio Inc. So, Kaitlin, if I want to help my
- 12:06Speaker 3: kids to learn their words. If I want to help
- 12:10Speaker 3: them to do well with their speech and language development,
- 12:13Speaker 3: what are two or three quick tips that are going
- 12:15Speaker 3: to be helpful for a time poor parent who just
- 12:16Speaker 3: wants to know.
- 12:17Speaker 1: What to do two or three tips. It's very hard
- 12:20Speaker 1: to narrow it down to that, but I think following
- 12:23Speaker 1: your child's lead is a really big one. And what
- 12:26Speaker 1: I mean by that is letting go of our own
- 12:29Speaker 1: agenda as adults and interacting with your child with the
- 12:34Speaker 1: activity or the toy that they're interested in that moment,
- 12:38Speaker 1: and if they're playing with it in a kind of
- 12:40Speaker 1: non traditional way, accepting that and being flexible with that.
- 12:43Speaker 1: When we think about play, it is spontaneous activity of children,
- 12:48Speaker 1: so joining into that play by making comments on what
- 12:51Speaker 1: they're doing. My second tip would be not asking lots
- 12:56Speaker 1: and lots of questions, so life is not a quiz
- 12:58Speaker 1: and kids get really bored of that game, So we
- 13:02Speaker 1: more just want to provide comments on what they're doing
- 13:07Speaker 1: and narrate. Like we mentioned before, the environment as well,
- 13:11Speaker 1: so we like to balance questions and comments, and the
- 13:15Speaker 1: general rule of thumb is for comments to every one question,
- 13:20Speaker 1: so that your child actually is being given the language
- 13:23Speaker 1: as opposed to being tested all the time. And probably
- 13:27Speaker 1: the third tip would be if your child is using words,
- 13:32Speaker 1: then adding onto those words like we mentioned before, by
- 13:36Speaker 1: adding one extra word or two extra words, so that
- 13:39Speaker 1: they're starting to see what that next stage of sentence
- 13:43Speaker 1: development could be. And you're using a variety of words,
- 13:47Speaker 1: so the descriptors, the adjectives, the action words, all of
- 13:52Speaker 1: those kinds of things as well, so that we're not
- 13:55Speaker 1: just labeling table chair things like that.
- 13:59Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that, because I'm the world's worst interviewer
- 14:01Speaker 3: and I can't help myself. I've always got to throw
- 14:03Speaker 3: a couple of extras in. I'm going to mention two
- 14:05Speaker 3: others that popped into my head as I was listening
- 14:06Speaker 3: to what you said, Kaylin. The first is that if
- 14:08Speaker 3: we can minimize our screen time and spend more time
- 14:11Speaker 3: face to face. It seems like if we spend more
- 14:13Speaker 3: time face to face, we're going to communicate more and
- 14:15Speaker 3: looking at us screen undermines that, and screens don't help
- 14:18Speaker 3: kids learn speech and language anything like being face to
- 14:22Speaker 3: face with us does. It's too passive. It's the active interaction.
- 14:26Speaker 3: The servant returned, the back and forth. And the other
- 14:28Speaker 3: thing that I was thinking of while you were talking,
- 14:31Speaker 3: was just the power of reading to our kids, like
- 14:33Speaker 3: putting them on our lap and reading books to them.
- 14:35Speaker 3: It does wonders for their vocabulary. It's amazing what happens
- 14:38Speaker 3: for their ability to get what language is.
- 14:42Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, reading is a really great activity to be
- 14:45Speaker 1: doing with your child, and I think the only point
- 14:47Speaker 1: with that is making sure that we're following their lead
- 14:50Speaker 1: even when we are reading a book to them. I
- 14:52Speaker 1: think a lot of adults like to sit down and
- 14:53Speaker 1: read the book from start to finish, and you can't
- 14:55Speaker 1: skip a word, and you can't skip a paved and
- 14:58Speaker 1: children will go off on their agenda with that, and
- 15:01Speaker 1: that's okay. We need to allow that. If they're skipping,
- 15:03Speaker 1: or they're reading the book the wrong way, or they're
- 15:05Speaker 1: just pointing to pictures, that's okay. But it does provide
- 15:09Speaker 1: a lot of different vocabulary to comment on, which is
- 15:12Speaker 1: also within context, which is what we always want to
- 15:14Speaker 1: make sure we're doing as well when we're speaking to
- 15:16Speaker 1: our kids.
- 15:17Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so glad that you said that, Caitlin.
- 15:19Speaker 3: I remember reading an article that emphasized that as adults,
- 15:23Speaker 3: we actually read too fast to our kids and they
- 15:26Speaker 3: benefit from a speech and language point of view, if
- 15:28Speaker 3: we just slow the reading down and like you said,
- 15:31Speaker 3: let them lead. So if they've got to if they
- 15:32Speaker 3: want to point to something, we can describe what's on
- 15:35Speaker 3: the page. We can talk about the characters' emotions on
- 15:38Speaker 3: their faces, or the colors of the clothing that they're wearing.
- 15:41Speaker 3: That it's not about getting through the book. It's about
- 15:43Speaker 3: having the connection time and the conversation.
- 15:46Speaker 2: All right, So let's talk.
- 15:47Speaker 3: About something that's particularly practical and particularly pressing at the moment.
- 15:50Speaker 3: We've got a healthcare provider shortage around the nation when
- 15:55Speaker 3: it comes to psychological help, when it comes to medical help,
- 15:58Speaker 3: and even when it comes to speech pathology help. If
- 16:01Speaker 3: people have been listening to this conversation and they've got
- 16:03Speaker 3: little kids up to maybe the age of four or five,
- 16:05Speaker 3: even six, and they're thinking, my child's not doing well,
- 16:10Speaker 3: my child's not meeting the milestones, they're not quite where
- 16:12Speaker 3: they should be. What do we do about these weight lists?
- 16:16Speaker 3: I mean, if you want to get to see a
- 16:17Speaker 3: speech hee, some people are waiting i don't know, six months,
- 16:20Speaker 3: nine months to be able to get in and see
- 16:21Speaker 3: a speech pathologist. What can people do? What can we
- 16:25Speaker 3: do as a nation, as a society to help here.
- 16:28Speaker 3: What's the deal?
- 16:30Speaker 1: Yeah, it is really concerning that there is a shortage
- 16:33Speaker 1: because it does create these really long wait lists in
- 16:35Speaker 1: some parts, we're looking at eighteen months plus to wow
- 16:39Speaker 1: be able to see a speech pathologist, and given you
- 16:42Speaker 1: know there is so much evidence behind early intervention, it
- 16:45Speaker 1: does cause a lot of stress for parents. I think
- 16:48Speaker 1: that as a nation, we really need to be offering
- 16:51Speaker 1: more speech pathology courses at universities. But also what I
- 16:55Speaker 1: see is when speech pathologists do enter the workforce is
- 16:58Speaker 1: that they are burning out a lot quicker than perhaps
- 17:02Speaker 1: previously because they are getting overloaded because there are such
- 17:06Speaker 1: huge weight lists, so that pressure to take on a
- 17:09Speaker 1: bigger case load more kids, that kind of thing really
- 17:13Speaker 1: is there, and so they're getting burnt out a lot quicker.
- 17:16Speaker 1: So trying to then recruit or retain speech pathologists becomes
- 17:20Speaker 1: more difficult as well. So I think we really need
- 17:23Speaker 1: to protect therapists once they are in the workforce so
- 17:26Speaker 1: that we don't see that burnout happen.
- 17:28Speaker 3: Caitlyn, why is there so much work to be done here?
- 17:33Speaker 3: Are we seeing more kids with more diagnoses for any
- 17:35Speaker 3: particular reason? Do you know why we've got such an
- 17:38Speaker 3: overburdened system, particularly with something like speech therapy.
- 17:43Speaker 1: I think the awareness of children speak to language development
- 17:47Speaker 1: is really prevalent at the moment, I suppose, and so
- 17:51Speaker 1: more and more parents are aware if their child is
- 17:53Speaker 1: not meeting those milestones, and so they're seeking the support,
- 17:57Speaker 1: which is fantastic. We want people to be taking action
- 18:00Speaker 1: early and as early as possible, so I think that
- 18:04Speaker 1: might be perhaps one of the reasons why we're seeing
- 18:07Speaker 1: this huge demand at the moment. Also, obviously, with COVID
- 18:12Speaker 1: having happened, a lot of children have not had a
- 18:15Speaker 1: lot of social interaction and have not had that opportunity
- 18:19Speaker 1: to be around a really language enriched environment with different people,
- 18:23Speaker 1: so that will also be affecting their their ability to
- 18:27Speaker 1: develop skills in speech and language areas.
- 18:30Speaker 3: I was going to ask if that had an impact, Well, Kaylin,
- 18:32Speaker 3: Absolutely delightful to have a chat with you. I hope
- 18:34Speaker 3: this has been a helpful conversation for parents who are
- 18:37Speaker 3: raising kids, and I want to make sure that they're
- 18:39Speaker 3: raising them in such a way that their speech and
- 18:41Speaker 3: language is going.
- 18:42Speaker 2: To be okay.
- 18:42Speaker 3: It's obviously critically important as a skill the ability to
- 18:46Speaker 3: communicate an absolute delight to talk to you. Thanks for
- 18:48Speaker 3: joining me on the Happy Families Podcast.
- 18:50Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
- 18:51Speaker 3: Justin Kaitlin o'mira is a speech pathologist and the WA
- 18:55Speaker 3: State manager at the Allied health company Physio Inc. If
- 18:59Speaker 3: you'd like more of about the things that we've talked about,
- 19:01Speaker 3: we've got a couple of links in the show notes
- 19:02Speaker 3: where you can go and find some additional support, some
- 19:05Speaker 3: guidance for what to do and how to do it,
- 19:08Speaker 3: who to speak to to get that help. The Happy
- 19:10Speaker 3: Families Podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.
- 19:13Speaker 2: Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
- 19:15Speaker 3: And if you'd like more info about how to make
- 19:17Speaker 3: your family happier, we would just love it if you
- 19:19Speaker 3: would become a Happy Family's member. It will make your
- 19:21Speaker 3: family happier. Dead Set fairly can guarantee the feedback from
- 19:25Speaker 3: so many people who are Happy Family's members has shown
- 19:26Speaker 3: that already. Oh, or you could listen tomorrow's podcast. We're
- 19:29Speaker 3: going to be talking about what you can do to
- 19:30Speaker 3: be a happier parent. That's first thing tomorrow where the
- 19:34Speaker 3: podcast drops. That's it for today. Thanks so much for
- 19:36Speaker 3: joining us. More information is available as always at happy
- 19:39Speaker 3: families dot com, dot a