A “wait and see” approach may be fine for other aspects of child development, but when it comes to speech and language development, it’s best to get an evaluation by a licensed Hermosa Beach speech therapist as soon as you suspect there may be an issue—even if your pediatrician says otherwise.

We don’t mean to disparage pediatricians. There are many great ones out there, but they are generally not experts in speech and language development. They may not have read the research about the importance of early intervention for speech and language delays. Starting your child in speech therapy early can be beneficial for several different reasons.

Speech Therapy Now May Mean Fewer Challenges in School

You may be thinking, “Why does it matter if my child gets speech therapy now or later?” Or you may be of the mindset that if you wait, your child can get speech therapy through the public school system. However, when a child starts school with communication issues, it can often lead to other academic challenges, creating sort of a domino effect. For that reason, it is best to work on your child’s speech issues before they enter school. Also, speech therapy in South Bay schools requires that your child is pulled out of class to receive therapy, causing him or her to miss valuable classroom time. With an early start, you may be find that your child has no need to continue in special education once they reach school age because their delay has already been completely overcome!

Early Intervention Can Help Achieve Better Outcomes

In some cases, it has been shown that starting speech therapy at an early age is necessary to achieve optimal results. Especially when there is a more severe issue, early intervention is key! Waiting to start speech therapy could mean that your child’s speech and language development never reaches its full potential.

Consulting with a Speech Therapist Can Help Your Own Peace of Mind

If your pediatrician or another health professional has told you to wait, but you still have concerns about your child’s speech and language development, you should go ahead and contact a Hermosa Beach speech therapist for a consultation. A speech language pathologist from Lil’ Chit-Chat can meet with you and your child for an evaluation, and we will always be completely honest with you. If we have no concerns about your child’s speech development, we’ll tell you. But if there are issues that should be addressed by a speech therapist, we’ll determine the best therapy plan, based on their age and specific challenges.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have concerns about your child! We would love to talk with you! If you’d like to set up a consultation, we can set up a time to send a licensed speech language pathologist to your Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, or Manhattan Beach home to evaluate your child. We hope to hear from you soon!

If you’re like most of our pediatric speech therapy clients in Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, and Torrance, your child likely just began receiving speech therapy at the beginning of the school year. With only a couple of months of therapy behind them, they are just now starting to gain some serious momentum toward their speech and language goals. Taking a break from speech therapy now can put a halt to all of that momentum.

You may be thinking: “Our family gets so busy over the holidays. We won’t have much time to work with our child in between therapy sessions anyway, so why even bother with therapy right now?” However, there is plenty you can do with your child to further their speech and language development, even with a hectic schedule. The holidays in particular offer some great opportunities to work with your child in the areas of speech and language. There are new things to see and more people to interact with, giving you a chance to incorporate new words into your child’s vocabulary. In addition, your child may also receive some new toys that will open up new opportunities for play-based learning.

If you’ve been thinking of starting your child in speech therapy, but have decided to wait until the new year begins to have your child evaluated by a speech therapist, we’d like to ask you to reconsider. If your child is delayed in their speech or language development, there is no better time to start them in therapy than now! We say it all the time, but it bears repeating: early intervention is key when it comes to speech and language development! If you’re not sure if your child actually needs therapy, we’d love to talk with you, answer any initial questions you have, and schedule a consultation with one of our licensed speech therapists in the South Bay.

We know it’s a busy time, or if it’s not busy for you yet, it will be soon! But don’t put off something as important as speech therapy for your child. You’d be surprised at the progress your child may be able to make in just a few short months, and you won’t ever regret the time you invested in your child’s speech and language development.

If you’re ready to get started, contact Lil’ Chit-Chat today. We hope to hear from you soon!

The featured interview with Sabrina appeared in a special section of the publication titled “All About Kids.” Sabrina was the only pediatric speech therapist to be featured, along with several schools, play facilities, and pediatrician offices, all of which are dedicated to the wellbeing of children in the South Bay area. Sabrina was also prominently featured on the magazine’s Facebook page, Our South Bay, which is followed by more than 22,000 people.

In the interview, Sabrina was able to articulate what makes Lil’ Chit-Chat unique among speech therapy clinics in the South Bay area. She talks about how the speech therapists at Lil’ Chit-Chat customize a therapy plan for each and every child, and provide support to families throughout the entire therapy process.

She also made a point of saying that at Lil’ Chit-Chat, our speech therapists don’t just help children through their present challenges, but set them up to be successful for the rest of their lives. When talking about what you can expect when you work with Lil’ Chit-Chat for your child’s speech therapy needs, Sabrina said in the interview, “We provide a safe and supportive environment where a trusting therapist-child relationship is established from the start. When we arrive to your child’s session, the kids are eagerly waiting to engage with their clinician.”

Sabrina’s passion for helping children with speech and communication challenges is evident throughout the interview. She shares this passion with all of the speech therapists at Lil’ Chit-Chat, who truly love working with children and making a difference in the lives of South Bay families.

You can read the entire featured interview in Southbay Magazine here.

If you’d like to get in touch with Sabrina to find out more about Lil’ Chit-Chat’s approach to pediatric speech therapy or to schedule an evaluation of your child in your South Bay home, contact us through our website, or give us a call at (877) 450-6757.

It is so fulfilling to us as speech therapists when we see progress in our clients. Take “G,” for example. His mother called Lil’ Chit-Chat when he turned two because she was concerned with his limited verbal output and his speech sound development.

Upon evaluation, we noticed that G was using some sound productions, but was inconsistent in imitating environmental sounds and in consonant-vowel productions. He understood most of what was being asked of him, but had difficulty using words and sentences to get his thoughts and needs across. Obviously, in a situation like this, it is frustrating for both the child, who is unable to have his voice heard, and for the parent, who has trouble understanding what the child is trying to say or ask for.

A speech therapist from Lil’ Chit-Chat began providing speech and language therapy to G at his Manhattan Beach home at the start of the new year. There has been a heavy emphasis on parent involvement and parent enrichment from the beginning, allowing G to work on his speech and language development in between speech therapy sessions.

In just eight speech therapy sessions, G’s progress has been remarkable! He is communicating much more independently. Where he once used vocalizations (i.e. “ahh”) to try to get his message across, he is now using more words to refer to objects (i.e. “boat”). He is even beginning to use spontaneous 2-3 word utterances! He’ll say things like “I want [the] ball,” “More toys,” “My turn,” “Yes please,” and “Come watch.”

One of the keys to G’s success is the fact that his mother didn’t take a “wait and see” approach. She called for a consultation with speech therapist as soon as she suspected that G wasn’t progressing as he should when it came to his speech and language development. At Lil’ Chit-Chat, we strongly believe in early intervention, and we can’t stress enough to parents the importance of calling for a consultation as soon as they have concerns. A licensed speech therapist from Lil’ Chit-Chat can give you an honest evaluation of your child and make recommendations for speech therapy, if it is needed.

Another key to G’s rapid progress is the fact that his parents have been heavily involved in the entire process. They went through our parent enrichment program and really worked with G in between sessions to reinforce what he was learning from his speech therapist.

Contact Us for Speech Therapy in Manhattan Beach

Do you have concerns about your child’s speech and language development? We’d love to hear from you! Contact us with your questions or to set up a consultation in your Manhattan Beach home.

We work with great families, many of whom are asking for additional information and resources to help their children achieve their speech therapy goals. Because of this, Lil’ Chit-Chat has decided to launch a Parent Enrichment Program. This customized educational program is designed to empower parents in the areas of speech and language development.

Parent Enrichment can apply to four different types of parents:

1. Parents who are not certain whether or not their child is in need of speech therapy services

Often, these parents have concerns about their child’s speech and language development, but their pediatrician has told them to “wait it out and see what happens.”

As speech therapists, we can’t stress strongly enough the importance of early intervention when it comes to a child’s speech and language development, so if a parent has concerns, they should schedule a Parent Enrichment session with one of our licensed Temecula Speech Language Pathologists. The therapist can provide strategies that the parent can implement into their child’s daily activities to facilitate speech and language development. They can also tell you if further professional intervention is necessary.

2. Parents with children enrolled in school speech therapy

Many children receive speech therapy services in public schools, which means that the parents aren’t present during (or even before and after) the therapy sessions. They may get regular reports from the school speech therapist, but some parents desire more “face time” and specific recommendations from a Temecula speech therapist. Through our Parent Enrichment Program, a Speech Language Pathologist from Lil’ Chit-Chat can meet with parents and give them insights and sound recommendations that can help their child’s progress.

3. Parents with children who recently exited speech therapy or who are about to exit

When a child exits speech therapy, it is important that the progress they have made is maintained. Our speech therapists can give parents specific recommendations to ensure that children don’t fall back into old habits and patterns.

4. Parents of children with typical speech and language development

Sometimes we get requests from parents looking for ways to enrich their child’s cognition, speech, or language development, even if their child doesn’t have a need for formal speech therapy sessions. Through our Parent Enrichment Program, our Speech Language Pathologists can work with parents throughout Temecula to develop programs that they can implement in their homes to further their children’s development in these areas.

Schedule a Parent Enrichment Session

Currently, our Parent Enrichment Program consists of private sessions in the homes of Temecula families. If you are a parent looking to work with one of our licensed Speech Language Pathologists in your home to help further your child’s speech and language development, please contact us to schedule a session.

We are also looking to expand this program and offer group sessions for parents of children with similar speech therapy needs. If you are part of a group that would like to have a Lil’ Chit-Chat speech therapist offer parent enrichment, please contact Sabrina Conway through our contact page. We would be happy to give a customized presentation to your group of parents in Temecula or any of the nearby surrounding cities. Contact us for more details.

Businessing Magazine is an online publication dedicated to small business owners and entrepreneurs. The publication offers insight and tips that small business owners can use to make their businesses more successful and run more efficiently. They also regularly feature small businesses and business owners in their “Interviews & Spotlights” section to give examples of how other small business owners are doing things and achieving success in their respective industries.

Lil’ Chit-Chat owner Sabrina Conway was interviewed by a writer from Businessing Magazine about what it means to be a “boutique” pediatric speech therapy clinic that services Temecula and the surrounding areas. She also answered questions about her experience starting and running a speech therapy business, and what she has learned in the process.

The article talks at length about the type of therapy provided by Lil’ Chit-Chat, and how it differs from the pediatric speech therapy offered in Temecula public schools. In the article, Sabrina is quoted as saying, “While I see the benefits of school-based therapy, private, in-home speech therapy is just so much more efficient. As a therapist, I love that I have the flexibility to cater to my clients’ specific needs and create individualized therapy sessions. So often, public school-based therapy is in a group setting, and for only 30 minutes per week, and that just doesn’t work well for some kids. I’ve seen kids who have been in speech articulation therapy in the public setting for years that probably could have graduated in a few short months if they had been in private therapy with the right speech therapist.”

The Businessing Magazine article also highlights Lil’ Chit-Chat’s commitment to involving the families of the children receiving speech therapy in Temecula. This, according to Sabrina, is a vital part of the “boutique” experience that Lil’ Chit-Chat’s clients receive. Sabrina says in the article, “We want our clients and their families to feel like they are truly known, and not just another customer. We work closely with the families of our clients because we recognize that family ‘buy-in’ is such an important component to a child’s success when it comes to speech therapy.”

You can read the entire interview here. Doing so will give you a good understanding of who we are and why we do what we do here at Lil’ Chit-Chat.

If you think your child could be a good candidate for private speech therapy in Temecula, contact Lil’ Chit-Chat. We would be happy to answer any questions you have and schedule a time for an in-home evaluation of your child.

Not All Children Thrive in Group Speech Therapy

Speech therapy offered in public schools is group therapy, which can bring about challenges for certain types of children. If your child is particularly shy, self-conscious, or anxious, group therapy may cause them to shut down. In the best case scenario, it will take this type of child a longer amount of time for them to “warm up” to the group and experience the benefits of speech therapy than it would if they were one-on-one with a therapist in their home, with a parent nearby.

On the other end of the spectrum, are the extremely outgoing children who see speech therapy as a time to goof off and socialize with their friends. Individualized speech therapy in your Canyon Lake home allows your child to experience therapy free from the distraction of other children.

Finally, in public school speech therapy, your child may be in a group of children with needs that are much different than their own. It is difficult for even the best speech therapist to address the unique needs of every child in their group in the short amount of time they have with them.

Individualized Attention

When you hire a Canyon Lake speech therapist from Lil’ Chit-Chat, your child gets the one-on-one attention they need. In addition, we can set up a speech therapy schedule based on what is best for your child. This can include multiple visits per week, with sessions that are an hour long each. Contrast that with public school speech therapy sessions that are usually only a half hour long, and may only be offered once a week. Even if there are only five children in the group therapy session, that only averages out to six minutes of individualized attention for your child!

Parent Involvement in Speech Therapy

Since the speech therapists at Lil’ Chit-Chat come to your Canyon Lake home for speech therapy, there is ample opportunity for you, as a parent, to be involved in helping your child progress toward their speech therapy goals. After every session, our speech therapists take the time to discuss with parents or caregivers what was done during the session, and how they can work with the child between therapy sessions. With public school speech therapy, parents may only have occasional opportunities to speak with the speech therapist that is working with their child and may not even know what is being worked on in therapy sessions.

Other Things to Consider

Like it or not, there is a certain stigma associated with children who are pulled out of class for special services like speech therapy. For very sensitive children, this could be an issue. With private, in-home speech therapy, this issue disappears and these children are free to thrive! Also, being taken out of class for speech therapy means that the child is missing valuable class time.

Public school speech therapy also has its limits. It doesn’t service very young children. As advocates of early intervention when it comes to speech therapy, we recommend addressing speech issues as soon as they are diagnosed. When children are not meeting their speech and language milestones, it is not advisable to wait until they are old enough to take advantage of public school speech therapy. The sooner they begin therapy, the better!

Please know, we are in no way trying to disparage the speech therapists that work in the local public schools. There are many pediatric speech therapists doing great work with children in the public school system. In fact, several of the therapists at Lil’ Chit-Chat either currently work, or have worked, in public schools as therapists. Children can, and do, receive quality speech therapy services in public schools throughout Canyon Lake and the Temecula Valley every day. However, we believe strongly in the benefits of private, in-home speech therapy. We’ve seen the results of both types of therapy, and know how much more progress can be made with one-on-one speech therapy, and involved parents and caregivers.

If you are interested in having your child evaluated by one of our Canyon Lake speech therapists, contact us to schedule a time for one of our therapists to come to your home for a free consultation.

Benefits of Speech Therapy In Your Canyon Lake Home

There are so many benefits to in-home speech therapy for children. First of all, like we’ve discussed in this blog before, we believe strongly in family involvement. The more parents, family members, and caregivers are involved with and understand what we are doing in our speech therapy sessions, the more equipped they are to help reinforce what the child is learning and working on. This provides much-needed consistency for children in speech therapy, and also speeds along the process.

Second, we believe children, especially very young ones, learn much more easily in their home environments. Many pre-school aged children suffer from some form of separation anxiety, and having a pediatric speech therapist come to your Canyon Lake home keeps you from having to drop them off at a strange place and hand them over to someone new.

When you use Lil’ Chit-Chat for speech therapy, your child is in his or her familiar surroundings, with you or a regular caregiver present. This situation greatly decreases the time it takes for your child to become comfortable with the speech therapy and the therapist. Your child will most likely progress more quickly and be more comfortable with the entire process.

Also, when you go to a speech therapy office or clinic, the speech therapist will use the materials and toys in their office to support the speech therapy being offered. Since you likely don’t have those same toys at home, it is difficult for you to reinforce some of learning that takes place in the speech therapy session. When a speech therapist from Lil’ Chit-Chat comes to your Canyon Lake home, we do bring some of our own learning materials and educational toys, but we can also utilize the toys you have in your home in the speech therapy session. That way, you and any caregivers can continue to work with your child and support their development using those same play materials in between speech therapy sessions.

Another benefit of in-home pediatric speech therapy is that it is convenient for you and/or your child’s caregiver. We work with a lot of work-from-home parents, who would find it difficult to leave their home office for several hours during the day, sometimes multiple times during the week, to take their child to a speech therapy appointment. When you have a speech therapist from Lil’ Chit-Chat come to your Canyon Lake home, it saves you a great deal of driving and waiting time, while still receiving quality speech therapy for your child.

Similarly, if you have a nanny or other childcare provider in your home watching your child while you are at work, they don’t have to be responsible for getting your child to and from his or her speech therapy appointments when you use an in-home speech therapist. Overall, it’s just a more convenient situation to have a pediatric speech therapist come to your home.

Even if you aren’t a working parent, we know that leaving the house with a young child is no small ordeal! And if you have multiple children, there is the issue of keeping the child that is not in speech therapy entertained in an office waiting room while you wait. In-home speech therapy just makes for a less stressful situation for everyone involved.

Contact Lil’ Chit-Chat for an In-Home Consultation

Maybe you’re not sure if your child is in need of speech therapy. One of our licensed speech-language pathologists would be happy to come to your Canyon Lake home for an evaluation of your child. After the evaluation, we can make therapy recommendations for your child based on his or her specific needs.

Contact us today to schedule an evaluation for your child. We also serve families in the cities of Menifee, Lake Elsinore, Murrieta, and Temecula.

The W family called us when their triplets were 26 months old. Two of the triplets, both boys, appeared to be behind their peers when it came to language development (see speech and language milestones), but their parents were hesitant to start speech therapy for them. However, they agreed to have a speech therapist from Lil’ Chit-Chat come to their home for an evaluation.

At the speech and language evaluation, we discovered that the boys’ receptive and expressive language abilities were more than a whole year delayed. It was recommended that the boys be seen twice per week for 60-minute sessions, and that the therapy sessions start immediately, since early intervention is extremely important when it comes to speech and language delays. The W family agreed, and Mrs. W observed every speech therapy session for the first month.

After only a short time working with a pediatric speech therapist from Lil’ Chit-Chat, Mrs. W wrote this testimonial:

“It has only been a little more than a month and the boys have increased their individual vocabulary and their ability to express themselves. They are imitating new words every day and they are even stringing two words together.”

We continued to work with the boys for several more months. At the end of each session, we would take time to meet with Mrs. W to answer her questions and provide recommendations and suggestions about things she and her husband could do between sessions to reinforce the things that were targeted in the speech therapy session. Mrs. W always followed through with implementing our suggestions, which really helped the boys progress quickly.

After eight months, the boys went from speaking only about 25 words to speaking in full sentences. They were also able to follow multi-step directions, ask questions, and tell short stories. Their parents were extremely pleased with their progress, as well as with the skills they had learned in speech therapy.

Recently, Mrs. W wrote an updated testimonial to me to let us know how the boys are doing today. She said:

“My boys, who are almost four now, are thriving in their ability to communicate and understand the world around them. They started preschool in the fall, and when we sat down with their teacher this Spring to discuss their progress, she told us, ‘they are able to express themselves and make their own needs known. They are easily understood by adults and peers, and have good sentence structure and vocabulary.’ Can you imagine our delight to hear such positive feedback about our sons who, before Sabrina, really struggled?”

She concluded her testimonial by saying, “Early intervention was a game changer for our family, and we continue to be grateful for all that Sabrina has done for our sons.”

The W boys are a true success story for us as pediatric speech therapists, but it all started with early intervention. We know there are so many children in Canyon Lake who could benefit from pediatric speech therapy, but their parents don’t pursue it, just hoping things might get better or that the problems will correct themselves over time. Please don’t delay! Early intervention is key!

If you have questions about whether or not your child could benefit from speech therapy, or if you would like to schedule a speech therapy evaluation in your Canyon Lake home, contact us today!

There are many great reasons to include family members and caregivers in speech therapy sessions. Here are a few:

A Better Understanding of the Challenges Faced by Their Child

Every child we see for pediatric speech therapy in Menifee has his or her own set of unique challenges, and it is important for family members to understand fully what those challenges are. So often, those closest to the child become accustomed to their way of speaking and no longer “hear” what needs improvement. By sitting in on speech therapy sessions, family members get a better understanding of what their child needs to work on and how their challenges are best addressed.

A Better Level of Comfort with the Therapy

The speech therapy process begins with our Licensed Speech Pathologists, but for maximum effectiveness, it needs continual reinforcement outside of the child’s speech therapy session. After all, a child will spend far more time not in therapy during the week, but with their family. When family members and caregivers actually see for themselves the activities and techniques used by our Menifee speech therapists, they are more comfortable duplicating them at home. And when family members are comfortable with the therapy strategies, they are more likely to utilize them and will feel more confident doing so.

Family Members Receive Training as Their Child Receives Therapy

During the pediatric speech therapy session, we are able to explain to family members and caregivers what we are doing and why. We know that the unknown can be scary, especially when it comes to a child with special needs or delays, so we are very intentional about explaining what we are doing, what purpose it serves, and how they can help their child continue to progress toward their speech therapy goals in between sessions.

At the end of every speech therapy session, we spend time with parents or caregivers discussing their child’s “homework” that should be worked on in between sessions. Whether the child is working on learning their first words, articulation, or auditory processing, there are so many opportunities to work on their goals in everyday life, and the speech therapists at Lil’ Chit-Chat in Menifee take great care in guiding parents through them.

If you are looking for speech therapy in Menifee or the Temecula Valley area that recognizes the importance of working alongside families to promote speech and language development in children, contact Lil’ Chit-Chat today! We are one of the only pediatric speech therapy clinics in Menifee that will come to your home and involve you in the entire process.  We are also happy to answer any questions you may have about speech therapy for your child, so don’t hesitate to get in touch with us!