When Kimberly Scanlon emailed me about reviewing her book I immediately went and checked out her website at www.ScanlonSpeech.com and I was very excited at what I found!  Kimberly, a speech-language pathologist from New Jersey, has created a website for her private practice that has great speech and language tips and tricks for parents and speech therapists alike.  She has also created a great resource for parents and speech therapists of toddlers with speech and language delays: her book My Toddler Talks: Strategies and Activities to Promote Your Child’s Language Development.  Kimberly sent me a few copies of this book in the mail (keep reading to find out how you could win one!) and I love what I see.  I’m going to take you on a tour of this book and let you know a little bit about it:

My Toddler Talks, Introduction:

In Kimberly’s introduction, she explains that this book is written to help parents and caregivers facilitate the communication and play skills of their toddlers.  She also explains how development of play skills are connected to development of speech skills and why playing with your kids is one of the best way to improve their speech and language skills.  Well said, I totally agree!!  She also talks about how children typically develop language so that you have some background information about how all this should run.

My Toddler Talks, Language Modeling Techniques:

Next comes one of my favorite parts of the book.  When I saw this page, I immediately went and made 40 copies and sent them home to all of my families.  This lists and explains many different ways to model language for your child in a way that will make it more likely for your child to learn to understand and use the language you’re modeling.  Fabulous!!  These are all the things that we do in speech therapy that make parents think “Wow, she must be magic!  How is she getting my child to talk so much!!”  Now you can have that magic, too!  These are all the same techniques I work to teach the families I work with and here they all are in one place.

My Toddler Talks, Troubleshooting:

This section is also great because it tells you what to do when you feel like the strategies aren’t working.  Every child is different and children with speech and language delays vary greatly.  This section will give you some ideas to try when you feel like these strategies aren’t quite working the way you’d hoped.  They are some simple adaptations you can do to help make progress more quickly.

My Toddler Talks, Helpful Tips:

Kimberly also gives you some helpful tips for encouraging speech and language development before diving into the activities.

My Toddler Talks, Speech and Language Activities:

Those of you who are loyal readers on my website will be no stranger to the types of activities that are explained in this next section.  Kimberly has taken the time to come up with fantastic speech and language activities that will help develop your child’s language skills during play with a variety of toys and games.  The toys of choice include farm, balls, touch and explore box, Mr. Potato Head, playdough, and even some that you don’t need any specific toys for, you can just use what’s around your house.  For each toy, Kimberly explains  the play routine and what to do throughout the activity to encourage language.  She then picks a few of the language strategies outlined above and explains how they could be used specifically in that activity.  This is such a great resource for parents!  I also copied several of these activities for all of my families as well.  They are always asking me for more homework and I felt like these activities were great for all of my kids’ families, no matter what the diagnosis or ability level.

My Toddler Talks, Appendices:

In the back of the book, there are places to track your child’s progress and develop helpful routines.  There are also a few clean-up songs and information about play and language development, including common first words (great ones to teach your child).

My Toddler Talks, Overall Impressions:

I love this book for parents of children with speech and language delays!  This book is geared for toddler-aged children who are not using much language yet but I argue that these techniques could be used for older children as well to develop language skills that are already there but aren’t quite as advanced as they need to be.  You could very easily adapt any of these activities to be just a little harder for your little guy or girl.  All in all, I highly recommend this book!

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Want a Free Copy??

Kimberly was nice enough to send me a free copy of My Toddler Talks for one lucky reader.  If you would like to enter to win the free copy, here’s what you need to do:  Leave a comment below that says why you would like to have this book.  You could say how it would help your family or tell us a little about your child that could benefit from it.  I will be randomly selecting one person from the comments to receive the free paperback book by mail.  Make sure you include your email address in your comment so I can email you if you win.  Your email address will not be published on the website.
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Where Can I Buy My Toddler Talks??

Kimberly is selling this book on Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions.

Paperback on Amazon: Click Here $18.95 (currently on sale!)

Kindle Version on Amazon: Click Here $9.99

Thank you so much for reading and good luck to you in the drawing!!

More Resources for Speech-Language Pathologists:

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  • Tools and Resources to help you with your paperwork and admin tasks
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