Ask any mom if they’d like to switch to a product for their child that reduces messes and spills, is affordable, and is super convenient and you’re bound to get a resounding yes! However, sometimes (and maybe more often than we care to admit!) convenience and ease can come with not-so-great consequences. That’s why, we as Speech Language Pathologists who have studied feeding and swallowing development, urge you to ditch the sippy cup! Here are some reasons why: The sippy cup was developed for parents, not for kids. As children grow and develop, so, too, does their feeding and swallowing pattern. In order to successfully chew and swallow food as well as successfully learn to drink from an ope
If you do a google search for “when should my child be able to say /r/?”, you will likely get a range of ages suggested. Over the past 2-3 years, data (particularly a cross-linguistic review of studies ranging from 1931-2016 listed below) has changed our thinking that certain speech sounds should be targeted earlier than previously thought (for the complete article, see https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100). These researchers concluded that by 5 years of age, typically developing children are able to correctly say over 90% of speech sounds! So, what does this mean for me and my child/ren? If your child is already receiving speech therapy at The Speech Spot, it means that our
