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!

As everyone knows, technology is the way of the future. Children are now going to school online, patients are receiving medical care online, people are working from remote locations, and so much more. The speech therapists at Lil’ Chit-Chat are also taking advantage of technology to provide quality service to our clients while our clients remain in the comfort of their own homes.

What is Telepractice?

Telepractice is basically online speech therapy. With telepractice through Lil’ Chit-Chat, our clients still interact with a live speech therapist who guides them through a therapy session. It is not a one-size-fits-all online program—it is a session that is tailored to our clients’ specific needs, just like the sessions we conduct in person. However, telepractice allows our speech therapists to also access fun and engaging computer programs that can be used to enhance the speech therapy sessions and capture the attention of our young clients.

Who is a Good Candidate for Telepractice?

Almost anyone in need of speech therapy could be a good candidate for telepractice. For our youngest clients—those in the range from birth to 3 years old—parents or caregivers serve as the facilitators in telepractice. They follow the speech therapist’s lead, helping their child work toward their speech and language goals. Parents and caregivers receive a great deal of coaching that is very useful in helping their children between sessions. More independent school-age children can engage on their own with a speech therapist online, and get personalized help in addition to the therapy they may receive at school.

Telepractice is also a great option for our clients who have been in therapy and are ready to be discharged, but still need some follow-up support to achieve all of their goals.  And for those living in a remote area, telepractice is a great way to receive quality therapy that might not otherwise be available.

We’ve also used telepractice with some of our clients who have busy schedules. For example, one of our speech therapists used to work with a high school student who had a hard time getting to regular therapy sessions, but was highly motivated to address his stuttering issue. He enrolled in speech therapy via telepractice, and in the six months our therapist worked with him online, his stuttering significantly improved!

The speech therapists at Lil’ Chit-Chat have received extensive training in online speech therapy through the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Offering this service allows us to help more clients, even those outside of the South Bay area. We can literally help anyone in the world who has a computer and an internet connection!

The majority of our speech therapy clients are still those that we see in their homes in Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, and Torrance, but for those outside of those cities, we can still provide quality, personalized care and help them reach their speech and language goals.

If telepractice sounds like something you might be interested in pursuing, contact us at Lil’ Chit-Chat. We’d be happy to answer all of your questions and set up a plan that will work for you.

Featured Interview in VoyageLA,

Recently, Lil’ Chit-Chat owner Sabrina Conway was contacted by VoyageLA, an online publication dedicated to sharing the stories of the people and businesses that make Los Angeles unique. They wanted to interview Sabrina to find out more about her as a small business owner, and also to learn more about Lil’ Chit-Chat and how it’s making an impact in the South Bay.

The interview, which you can read here, allowed Sabrina to talk about her approach to speech therapy and how she has turned her experience and passion into a thriving business. She also talked about how Lil’ Chit-Chat caters to the specific needs of its clients, and also offers some unique programs, like online speech therapy and a Parent Enrichment Program.

We want to thank VoyageLA for taking the time to get to know Sabrina and Lil’ Chit-Chat, and for shining a light on small businesses that are doing great work throughout the Los Angeles area.

Lil’ Chit-Chat Given Menifee Award for Small Business Excellence

Lil’ Chit-Chat was also recently recognized for the work we are doing in the Menifee area with our speech therapy clients. The Menifee Small Business Excellence Award Program chose Lil’ Chit-Chat to receive the 2017 award for speech therapists in Menifee!

According to the official press release issued by the Award Program, “Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value. These are small businesses that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Menifee area a vibrant and vital place to live.”

We work hard at making sure our business is an asset to the communities in which we are located, and we are grateful to the Menifee Small Business Excellence Award Program for recognizing Lil’ Chit-Chat as a business that is making the city of Menifee a better place to live and work!

Speech Therapy for Children in Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Menifee

If you are looking for a pediatric speech therapist in the South Bay, or in south Riverside County, we would love to talk with you. Our speech therapists have experience working with children with all types of speech and language challenges and can develop a personalized plan for your child that addresses his or her specific needs. Contact us today to have your questions answered or to set up an appointment for an evaluation.

During this time off, you may see a loss of momentum when it comes to your child’s progress, but this doesn’t have to be the case. There are many things you can do as a parent to make sure your child continues to progress toward their speech and language goals.

Unstructured Play is Great for Development

The school months are filled with lots of structured activities—in speech therapy, in the classroom, and in any after-school activities in which your child may be involved. Summer is a good time to give your child the opportunity to engage in unstructured play—that is, play that is undirected by you or anyone else. Give your child some simple materials or craft supplies and see what they come up with. Take them to a safe area where they can just explore until their heart’s content. Invite a friend or two over to play so they can practice communicating and socializing with peers in a casual environment.

Whatever activity your child is engaged in, make sure you are working alongside them to improve their communication in a way that keeps things fun and lighthearted. Ask questions, introduce new words related to what he or she is doing, and encourage critical thinking as they work through situations.

Summer Activities that Can Enhance Speech and Language Development

Summer activities present great opportunities for teaching and practicing vocabulary in new environments. Taking your child to the beach, the pool, on a hike, or on a trip will allow you to introduce new words and concepts, and also will give your child many chances to ask and answer questions, practice following directions, engage in critical thinking, and socialize.

Just like in unstructured play, keep the communication practice fun during your family’s summer activities. Make it a natural addition to what you’re doing, rather than turning a fun activity into a “lesson.”

As a parent, you are your child’s number one teacher! Your child’s speech therapist can give him or her the tools needed to develop their speech and language skills, but you teach your child how to engage with the world. Look for opportunities every day to teach and practice communication skills, but don’t forget to have fun!

If you’d like to supplement you summer activities with some private speech therapy, contact Lil’ Chit-Chat. Our speech therapists come to your Manhattan Beach or Redondo Beach home and involve family members in your child’s speech therapy sessions. You can also contact us with any initial questions you may have or to schedule an evaluation of your child. We hope to hear from you soon!

The convention offers speech therapists the opportunity to learn about innovative speech therapy techniques and further their professional development in a variety of areas. The conference allows attendees to choose the sessions that best fit their needs as speech therapists, in order to learn from speech and language experts and converse with like-minded professionals about their work.

At the ASHA convention, Sabrina attended a great session called “PROMPT Case Studies: Achieving Functional Communication Outcomes.” The session was conducted by Amy Clark from the PROMPT Institute.

PROMT stands for PROMPTS for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets and focuses on the accurate articulation of a sound, word, or sentence by providing the appropriate movement and shaping of the child’s mouth. PROMPT has shown to be effective for both children who have yet to begin speaking, as well as for ones who have words, but exhibit difficulty with speech clarity.

Sabrina had previously completed education through the PROMPT institute and has been implementing PROMPT into her pediatric speech therapy sessions with children throughout Temecula. The PROMPT course at the ASHA conference offered Sabrina and the other speech therapists in attendance additional ways in which they could implement PROMPT into therapy sessions with clients of any age or diagnosis.

As a speech therapist serving the Temecula area, Sabrina is dedicated to ensuring that she is in the know about what is up and coming in the field of speech pathology. When a specific approach to pediatric speech therapy (like PROMPT) shows good results, Sabrina takes notice and does her research to see if that particular approach would benefit her pediatric speech therapy clients. She is also dedicated to continuing her education as a Speech Language Pathologist. She regularly attends the ASHA conference, and has received the Award for Continuing Education (ACE) from ASHA for going above and beyond the requirement for continuing education.

If you are looking for a Temecula pediatric speech therapist who is dedicated to offering the most effective approaches to speech therapy, contact Lil’ Chit-Chat. We would be happy to schedule a time for one of our speech therapists to come to your Temecula home for an evaluation of your child.

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.