Ep #84: 5 Foundational Language Skills Your Toddler Needs for Speech Development with Jill Urbane

As a parent, what do you need to know about speech delays? What’s kind of in the range of normal and when should you be maybe a little bit concerned? Today, one of our top guests is back. We don’t bring guests back very often, but we brought Jill Urbane back and she is chatting with me today about speech delays and what to watch for, what to know, all the things that you’re going to want to know as a parent to be able to advocate for your child. Or to just feel comfortable and not worry, which can also be a great thing. You’re going to want to listen to this one. It’s super helpful. It’s coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

Amy: Jill, it’s so good to have you back on the show. Thank you for coming to talk to us today.

Jill: Thank you for having me. I always love talking to you.

Amy: Oh, my goodness, I’m so excited. And today we are talking about toddler speech development, which I think is such a really interesting thing. The more I get into reading, too, the more interested I am in speech. And so, I’m so excited to have this conversation and get to chat a little bit about it. Tell us a little bit about what you do with speech. I know last time you were on, we talked about behaviors and toddlers and things like that. Tell me a little bit about how you got into what you do with speech.

Jill: So, I’m an early childhood interventionist and have worked in an early intervention program for over 25 years. And how I got into that, I didn’t know anything about speech development and my kids were still really, really young. And once I started as an early childhood interventionist, they decided that they wanted to have me do some of the evaluations on the students that I was currently working with. And my daughter was about 18 months old, I think, at the time and my son was about four and he was a chatterbox and talking. Everything was great and rosy in my world.

And so, I thought, well, I’m going to practice this new evaluation tool on my daughter. So, I started going through it and doing all the checklists and doing all the activities. And then I could start feeling kind of this little sinking in my heart because she was not scoring well in the language area. And so, I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I was so overwhelmed with this. She only had about maybe two or three words at 18 months when they should have more like 20 and doing a little bit of combining at that time. And so, I was just feeling like a horrible mom. How did I miss this?

But I think it happens a lot, especially when toddlers are so good at communicating their wants and needs. She’d hand me the cup and I’d just go fill it up. So, from there, I just kind of got busy. I was personally the mom that was like, “I want to figure out if there’s something that I can do to help catch her up.” So, I just took everything that I was learning as a part of this new role and started applying it. And I was picking the brains of every speech pathologist and OT and anybody who’d been doing this longer than me and asking them questions at the drinking fountain and the staff room. They were probably so sick of me.

But I was using all of this information and applying it to her and I kind of came up with a process. And within six months, by the time she turned two, she had caught up to her speech and she’s not stopped talking since. Now she’s 23.

Amy: That’s a good thing.

Jill: And so, I always believe in making our mess our message. And so, as I started working with more and more parents who their toddlers were not talking, I could feel the pain, because I got it, what that feels like to know that your child needs some help and then not know what to do about it. And yes, we’re there as interventionists and yes, there are speech therapists. But when parents are taught the strategies and have the tools and have a framework to know what to do and how to do it, it just blossoms their self-esteem.

And whenever parents are like, “You [inaudible].” And I didn’t do anything. I gave you some tools. You’re the one that did the work. I just showed you how to use them. When they do the work, it’s just more powerful for the little ones. They learn best from their parents. They learn best when things are embedded in daily routines. They learn best with less of repetition and consistency, and nothing does that better than being in somebody’s house.

Amy: Yes. This is so good. I’m with you all the way. I think this is amazing. And let’s talk about why this matters so much, why words matter, why vocabulary matters. Talk to me a little bit about why this is important.

Jill: Well, there’s a lot of really interesting research on the impact that speech delays can have later on in life for kids. So, the research will show that a lot of kids, if they have a delay in their early childhood years and I should add that a speech delay is the number one developmental delay in kids, number one across the board. And as somebody who’s been doing this for 25 years, I would say that 85% of the kids that I serve, it’s a speech delay, whether it’s understanding, whether it’s use or whether it’s sound production.

So anyhow, they find that a lot of kids catch up by the time that they turn five, but there’s a small proportion of them that don’t and continue to need some additional services. But even those kids who catch up, they risk having some struggles academically later on down the road, especially when it comes to things like comprehension. Our speech and our communication is so important, but I think it’s so challenging in the early childhood years because they don’t really talk about this stuff. They just say your child should have this many words, and if not, seek out some help.

But they don’t talk about how all kids develop language the same way, all of them. Some of them get stuck and then we need to give them a little nudge. And others, they get stuck because maybe they have a diagnosis, maybe they have autism and they can certainly be verbal as well. But they might get stuck in one area and that’s kind of where they stay for a while, it just kind of depends. So, I think it’s just really important for parents to be equipped with the knowledge. My framework is always, understand development, understand your child’s unique wiring and then apply the strategies.

Amy: Yes to all three of those. I have all the questions. So, the first question is, do you feel like a lot of the speech things, I mean, some of them, maybe our ability to produce sounds or some of the different ones that we’re familiar with. Is there a piece of that, that is kids struggling to pick up vocabulary? Because that could certainly be impacting their comprehension skills. But from the reading side, which is kind of more the side I come from, not having vocabulary. We know is so critical because they need to know 90 to 95% of the words in the text they’re reading if they want to be able to comprehend it.

So, if they don’t know the words, is that part of the problem, or is it something different in speech that you’re seeing more of?

Jill: Well, there’s a number of factors. The thing that I have found to be kind of the predominant area that I see that kind of keeps kids from moving forward is they’re lacking these foundational language skills. There are a number of these skills, but I kind of break them down for parents into five steps to getting towards. So, the first step is engagement and that’s that we’re interested in people, we’re interested in things and we’re interested in the environment.

If I’m not interested in people, things or my environment, how am I going to learn? But that’s sometimes the hardest piece for some kids. They really struggle with that engagement. So, we have to work really hard on that to help them realize, we also tell parents, “We want your child to realize you make everything better. You’re the best toy in the room. You’re the one that they want, they want to hang out with you.”

Amy: I’m writing that down. I want that everywhere in my house. You’re the best toy in the room. That’s my new favorite quote from you. Everyone, Jill says you’re the best toy in the room.

Jill: That’s right. That should always be our goal is to become the best toy in the room for our kids. So, once you have this engagement, and kids are staying engaged and they’re interested and they’re paying attention to you. Now we have to keep them there longer, so the next step is circles of communication. So that’s that back and forth, the baby looks at you and sticks their tongue out. You stick your tongue out and the baby’s like, “Oh.” And then they stick their tongue back out. That’s where they realize that they have an impact on other people, that they can make things happen.

So, the more back and forth we can get, the more they learn about the impact that they can have in communicating whether it’s sounds or lip smacks or things like that. But also, when they stay with us longer, they’re listening and watching the things that we do. So, when we’re talking, they’re paying attention to the words. If I don’t have the engagement and I don’t have circles of communication, your words mean nothing to me because I’m not there with you. So, once we have circles of communication then comes the comprehension.

Now I’m understanding, you’re saying words like more or boo or yay. And now I’m understanding what those words are and I am seeing the gestures that you’re doing. So, I want to do those gestures. I’m going to sometimes do the gesture before you to see are you going to do the gesture. And that’s when we see that kind of cooing back and forth with our babies and they start going “Mama, mama, mama, mama.” And we’re saying, “Mama, mama, mama, mama.” And they’re like, “Oh, I can do that too.” So, we’re working on that comprehension. They’re hearing our words.

Once we have them there, and that comprehension is so important, so important. And I think that’s probably one of the pieces that so many parents who are worried about their child using words, forget. They put more emphasis on the getting them to use the expressive language and the talking, but I can’t use a word if I don’t know what it means. I can’t tell you I want a banana if I can’t look at it, go get it, point to it. So when you say banana that I’m like, “Yeah, there’s a banana right there. I know what a banana is.” Once I know where it is, what it is, then I can work on saying it.

And so, I think sometimes we get so caught up on, they’re not saying words, say this, say this, say this. Well, they’re not even understanding that. So, comprehension has to come first. We should always understand more words than we’re actually using. I mean, we know so many words that we don’t use throughout the day, but they’re in there and we understand them. So, we always want that comprehension to be higher than the expressive level because we can keep growing that and the more we grow the comprehension, the more we grow the vocabulary.

Amy: Right. That’s so interesting because it works the other way too, and just that connection, so good.

Jill: Yeah, and the hard part about comprehension too is, I mean it takes a ton of repetition. I read somewhere that a child needs to hear a word between 250 and 500 times before they’re going to understand it.

Amy: Wow. That’s a little overwhelming.

Jill: I know. And that’s why that labeling that we’re always talking about parents doing, you’re getting your baby dressed and they’re not understanding anything that you’re saying yet. But we’re still saying, “Sock, pants, diaper,” while we’re putting them on because we’re trying to get that repetition. And every time we talk to them, we’re stimulating the language center of the brain. And every time we’re saying that word over and over, we’re putting a little bit of myelination on that neural pathway to know what that word is, so that repetition is key.

So, once we have comprehension, the last two steps in getting to words, and these can be more like a landing. Kids can do these at the same time. Some kids do this one first and vice versa. But one thing to know is they’re working on all of these at the same time. So, we may be focusing on engagement, but they’re dabbling in some of the other things. The key is to try to get them solid on each of these steps. And I always say, 75% of the time, they should be understanding the word we’re saying and pointing to the picture 75% of the time.

They should be staying engaged with us 75% of the time because we know kids are never going to do anything 100% ever. So, we’re just going to stay at 75%.

Amy: This is a really good goal right there.

Jill: Yes. So, the last two steps are initiation and imitation. And initiation is where we let our kids take the lead. They’re learning that if I want my juice, then I need to take my cup to you or I need to pull you to the kitchen. And then imitation is I’m imitating sounds, I’m imitating gestures and I’m imitating words. We have to start with gestures, then sounds, then words. And what we know is that kids who are lacking imitation, that is about 85% of the kids that have speech delays, are lacking imitation skills.

So, understanding this pathway now, if you think about a baby and we’re trying to get them to clap and we’re trying to get them to imitate waving and we’re trying to get them to imitate boo. All of that imitation that we’re doing with our babies is critical for the imitation that we’re going to need when we want to get closer to them using words. So, once you understand these foundational language skills, then you can be like, “I’m going to be more intentional when I’m interacting with my baby to help build a solid pathway to words so that they don’t ever have to worry about them being behind hopefully.”

Amy: Oh, my goodness, I just feel like this is so much. I’m taking notes over here, by the way. I’m like, “I need to write this down. This is so good.” I love that you talked about it, was it gestures and then sounds and then words?

Jill: Yeah.

Amy: I love that so much because that makes so much sense. And in the teaching that I do, I get to help coach teachers on teaching kids to read. And we talk about the speech part of our brain and how it came with us. But there is still this part of development and having to learn all these pieces. And what’s cool then is then when we’re taking kids and trying to teach them how to read, we’re breaking it back down and helping them take words and break them back down into sounds and then be able to. Anyway, it’s just kind of all cool how it all works together.

But working on that imitation, I feel that’s so cool because that’s something we can do really, really early. And it’s such a beautiful way to help them learn how communication works and what it looks like and they can start with gestures. And I remember bringing home my first baby and she was very, very communicative, I felt from the beginning. And she would look at me with her eyes and just watch my mouth move and then she would move her mouth. And there was no sound. Anyway, it’s just kind of fun to kind of see them engaging with you.

But that’s how you’re building those pathways in the brain to help them be ready to communicate. And then that’s ultimately going to be able to help them be able to read as well as we’re breaking it back down to rebuild it again as words.

Jill: Yeah. There’s just so much more to speech than what we really realize. I mean, it’s not just these foundational language skills. Imitation is important for getting to the words but it’s also important for the motor planning part of speech, which we don’t really think about. We kind of take it for granted. I’m going to ask you to do something really silly. I want you to say the word cat. So, when you said that, did you think about moving the back of your tongue up to the back of your palette, exhaling air and then moving your tongue to the front of your mouth to the back of your teeth?

Amy: No.

Jill: No. That’s a lot going on there. So, the more that we’re working on that imitation, I love that you said that about your daughter when she was watching you. I was just on a home visit today with a little girl and we were doing lip pops. And then I was doing tongue smacks. And she was watching my tongue and you could see her little tongue in there twisting and turning, trying to figure out, how is she doing that. That is motor planning and that takes lots of repetition and it takes lots of practice. And the kids who are really good with that motor planning with the practice and the repetition, it’s going to be easier for them to produce the speech sounds the correct way, so it helps with articulation down the road.

Amy: Right. I can totally see that. That’s so good. So, this is fabulous, because this starts really, really early, very foundational, working on engagement, the circles of communication. And I feel like some of these, they just all build. It’s so beautiful. We have to build a comprehension. I love it all. It’s so good. So, if we’re going to practical tips that we have, a parent is home with their child. What are some things we want them to do just to try to help prevent any kind of future speech patterns, to have the best normal or really healthy speech development for their child?

Jill: Yeah. So, the first thing is going to be to be fun and engaging so that your little one is interested and wants to imitate you from a young age. The second one is to pair lots of sounds and actions in play because that’s that imitation piece. They’re going to get good with the gestures. Then we want them to do the gestures with the sounds and then the words. And I always use for parents the analogy of singing the itsy bitsy spider. We’re singing the words with all the gestures, our little ones watch us. Wow, that’s super cool. And then they might imitate the gesture out.

But we continue to sing as we’re modeling it, we’re continuing to sing all the words with those gestures. And then eventually when they do the gesture for out, they actually say, “Out.” So, we continue, they continue, okay, I get it. I have to say all of those words while I’m doing those actions and then eventually they’re able to do it all. And so that’s how gestures are a bridge to words.

Amy: So interesting. So, I had this incredible experience last summer. I was in Kenya and because of the number of people we’ve been able to help, we were able to go and help build a school in Kenya. So, we partnered with the government for the land and then the community builds the school and we just provide materials, and then they hire their own teachers. Yeah, so we just help them have a place so that they can educate their children in their way, which I love and it’s beautiful.

So, I was in this classroom with all of these four year olds and this was the classroom that we had helped build. And I go in there before we’re getting ready to leave and the teacher’s not in there for some reason. I don’t know what had happened, but the teacher wasn’t in there. So, I’m like, “I should probably go back out.” So, I started leaving the classroom and all of these four year olds start following me and they don’t speak English yet. They learn English in Kenya in school, but at this age they don’t speak it yet. So, they’re all following me and they don’t really speak English yet.

And I’m like, “Oh no, I can’t take all these children out of their classroom.” So, I go back in the classroom and I’m thinking, what do I do till the teacher comes back. So, we started singing and we were doing itsy bitsy spider because I’m like, “It has actions, I can engage with these children.” So, I had this whole classroom of children that do not speak English. I speak English, I do not speak their language, and so I’m doing it. And exactly what you said. I start doing the actions, they’re all very excited because I’m kind of animated. And we’re going to sing and it’ll be so fun and they’re doing the actions with me.

And then they started picking out their one word, the word that stands out and the whole class was singing the one word. So, I’ve seen this, what you’re talking about, with this exact song and it’s so cool to see exactly what you’re talking about in action.

Jill: Yeah. And that is another tip is that if you want to work on imitation and engagement and all of those things, music is one of the best ways to do it. There was an interesting article where they put two individuals through MRI machines to look at their brain activity. One person was exposed to music and the other person was not. The person who was exposed to music, almost every area of their brain lit up, and that’s how powerful music is as a tool. And that’s why any good early childhood teacher, preschool, daycare person, they are singing all dang day.

I had one teacher that I worked with that she sang when circle time was over. She sang when it was time to go sit at snack. She sang when it was time to lay up. And the kids were like, “Oh, music.” And then they go over and they join in. It’s a huge and powerful way for us to learn, because I mean, if you think about it. It helps us to retain information better, music does. I can remember the jingle to Honeycomb cereal from the 70s. Do I need that information in my brain? No. But is it there forever because it was so powerful at the time that my brain was taking it in? Yes.

So, I don’t think parents use music as often as they should to help their kids with attention and cooperation. You get a little one that won’t pick up toys, sing the clean-up song and they’re going to be more likely to help pick up toys because that’s a lot more fun than just pick up your toys. Music makes everything better, especially with young kids.

Amy: It does, and it is such a good memory device. It has blown my mind repeatedly. I grew up, I say that I learned, music was my first language at my house. So, I kind of learned how to sing before I could talk. It was just kind of the strategy in my home because of my mom, but it is, it’s so powerful. I tell a story of one day I was sitting in the kitchen and I had my young kids and I was very busy and working and all of a sudden I started crying. And I don’t cry. I grew up with eight brothers, crying, was not cool, you just don’t cry so I’m not a crier. And I’m sitting here crying in my kitchen. I’m like, “What is happening right now?”

Jill: It was a song, wasn’t it?

Amy: And I look up and my kids, I’d let them watch a movie, I knew it was on Disney. I didn’t really know, I just wasn’t paying attention. And they’re watching it and I look up and it’s the Dumbo movie and it’s the song where the mom gets put in the little cage in jail, and she’s got her trunk through and is rocking her baby. And I had cried during that as a small child, having seen that movie and my emotions, my heart remembered the emotion of that through the music, and I wasn’t even aware of it. I hadn’t listened to it. And music is so powerful at helping us remember so many different things.

Jill: It really is because so many different sensory systems are involved with music and the other piece is that emotional piece. And that’s one thing that I always want to impress upon parents too, when doing learning activities is, it has to be fun. There has to be joy in it. You have to figure out and we’ve got to be sneaky and creative as parents. But how can I make this a joyful experience for my child? Because they’re going to pair that emotion, cells that fire together, wire together.

And if joy and happiness are attached to an activity or an experience, the learning that’s going to take place there is going to be far stronger than if that emotion is not attached to it.

Amy: Yes. Preach. That’s what we talk about here, the name of it is Planning Playtime. I know, I just finished, well, I’m actually not quite finished yet, but reading a book by Adam Grant and he talks about this idea of the 10,000 hours. And he talks about the difference between deliberate practice and deliberate play. And he said not all, 10,000 hours are equal. And it was just so fascinating to read through the stuff on play and how valuable. And I’m like, “I’ve been telling you this, play matters.” So, it’s always fun when we get to have people come on and talk about the importance of play because it does, it changes everything.

Jill: It really does. And I think one thing that parents need to understand is that play is work for kids, that’s their full-time job. Because I get a lot of parents who say, “I get home from work at the end of the day and my child’s in a bad mood and I’m in a bad mood and I’m stressed.” Well, they’ve been working all day and they’re working all day. And I’m like, “They have been working all day.” I can’t remember what it was, they are developing 1,000 new neural pathways every minute.

Amy: Wow, that feels like a lot.

Jill: Yeah, in the first three years. So, I’m like, “They’re like doing Pilates, hot yoga. They are working all day long. And so, when you come home and you’re stressed, they’ve been working all day long. Yeah, they’re tired too. They need some connection there. They need some rest. They need some comfort because they had a long day, too.”

Amy: Yeah, this is so good. Let me ask you this, because we’ve just talked about so many good things. And I think we’ve kind of talked through some of the good things to do just kind of in a normal healthy situation, best case, try to help your kids develop these skills and avoid prevention needs down the road. But when you have a child who is struggling, and I say this from a place of, I have this bright, brilliant, beautiful little kiddo in my life that could do any math problem, do all the things but speech, she just couldn’t make her R sounds, and it was just a real struggle.

And so has been going through the process in school of getting help with her R’s. And she worked really hard and she’s doing great now. But when that happens, what does that look like? What do we do when we worked really hard and tried our best but then not everything goes perfectly all the time?

Jill: Yeah, there are so many different resources out there. And it really depends on the parent and what’s the best fit for them. Some of the parents that I work with, I mean, there’s always early intervention for kids under the age of three. So, you can go to the CDC website and type in early intervention. It’ll bring up all of the states, click the link and it’ll tell you where in your state or how in your state to access early intervention services, which here in the United States is free. Well, I should say it’s free in the state that I work in. I’m learning that it’s not free every place else.

So anyhow, there’s early intervention services where somebody like me, an early childhood interventionist, comes and works with the parent and that’s a parent coaching model. I’m there teaching the parent what to do. The intervention happens between the visits. So, I model some strategies and then I have the parent practice the strategies. And I coach them through it and provide them some feedback. And then we work together to develop a plan. But they’re the ones that are doing the work. It’s not therapy. Parents need to understand that early intervention is not therapy. It’s trying to equip you as a parent.

So, there’s the early intervention and there are a lot of families that find that really beneficial. There are some families that would prefer to do outpatient kinds of therapies, speech therapy or OT therapy. And that’s a different model. That’s a therapy model. So, the therapist is doing the work and writing the plan and all of that. The parents should hopefully be a part of that and be given tips and strategies, but that’s more of, I’m doing the work with the child kind of model. And sometimes in my experience, sometimes parents can feel a little left out of the loop.

I always tell parents, as a therapist, I can get kids to do all sorts of stuff because I’ve got no history with them. I’m setting the tone about, yeah, you’re not going to get in my bag. I’m using my body and communication so they learn to interact with me from a fresh place. Whereas for parents, they’ve already got all of these historical interactions. And when they go to try to change what they’re doing because that’s how we get change from our kids is we have to change what we’re doing. The kids are like, “No, I throw my cup at you and that’s how you know to fill up my milk. You don’t just sit there and wait for me to bring it to you.”

So that’s why sometimes the early intervention, I mean, I’m biased. I believe parents should be the ones equipped to know what to do at home. So, there’s outpatient speech therapy. And then when kids turn three or in some states, I think it might be a little bit earlier, but once kids get closer to the age of three, parents can reach out to their local school district in addition to working with their pediatrician. But the local school district, if they have concerns regarding speech, language, gross motor skills, they can contact their special ed department in their local district or their ISD and request an evaluation.

And if they’re eligible for services, then there’s a gamut of resources. It could be some outpatient services. It could be some classroom programming. It could be some more in-home services. So, there’s lots of different options out there. And I would just encourage parents, try them all and figure out what fits for you. And don’t feel guilty if you’re like, “I don’t like the intervention. I like the speech therapy and going to an office. It works best for my kid.” You know your kid best. You know your kid best.

Amy: Yes, so true. I think that is so, so true. And you want to find the thing that works for them because that’s going to be what’s going to make a difference and that’s sustainable for sure. Let me ask you, when we’re talking about speech, so I have the experience with sounds or getting them to talk. What about if they’re struggling with things like using words in the right context, if they’re saying things, they’ll use the wrong tense or things like that, is that kind of related? And what does that look like as far as helping kids with that piece?

Jill: It really depends on the age. I mean there are all sorts of different developmental norms. And I want to make sure that I’m clear for your listeners that I am not a speech therapist. I’m a social worker. And in the early intervention world, we do multidisciplinary teams, so it can be anybody that’s working because we’ve all been cross trained in these things. But when it comes to different kinds of speech milestones, it really kind of depends on the age. For kids under three, not always getting the correct verb tense, that’s okay, as they get older.

If it’s something that’s an ongoing concern, then it would be time to check in with your pediatrician or have an evaluation done, consult with a speech therapist. See whether or not that is something that they should have had down by that certain age that they are. Because one thing that parents aren’t always aware of is, there’s certain speech sounds that are expected for different ages. A little one who is two and half, doesn’t have to have an S down. It’s okay that they don’t do their R’s. We’re talking, B, P and M are the big three, under three.

So, when you understand that component of development too, what sounds should come by what age at the latest, then it makes it easier too. I was just talking to a mom about it today. She’s like, “My daughter can’t say slide.” And I was like, “Well, she’s two and a half and that’s a blend and that’s an S and that’s an L. We can worry about that at six.”

Amy: Right. Give us a minute, it’ll be okay. So, what is a good way for parents, is there a resource for them to kind of be able to check some of those things because they didn’t hand us a manual at the hospital of, here’s when your child should be making the sounds of B, P and M. So, what’s the best place to kind of go look at those things, just to kind of get an idea of where they could be?

Jill: Well, ASHA, which is the speech and language website that is for professionals where they get their certifications and all of those kinds of things, has wonderful resources related to articulation development. The CDC has some great resources. Parents as Teachers have some great resources. The hard part with some of those checklists though is that they’re all over the place. One can have a gazillion different milestones in it. And then another one could have four in the same age range.

So, it can be really confusing for parents, for those of you listening, if you go out and you check a list and you’re like, “Oh, my God, my kid can’t do half of that stuff”, you might want to keep looking around. Ages and Stages is a pretty good screener for development overall, not just speech. And that is something that there are a lot of organizations that will do that free, through online or through other home based programs. We have a Parents as Teachers program here in the state of Michigan and the educators go in and they do the ages and stages every three to four months with the little ones. So, they always kind of know where they are and on track.

And I know that we have other programs here in this state where they actually mail an Ages and Stages to the parents every six months or every 12 months so parents can see where they’re at, but Ages and Stages is a good one, but your pediatrician as well.

Amy: Yeah, I love it. This has been so good. We are out of time. Every time I talk to you, we’re running out fast, that’s so good, I know. This is so helpful. Before we go, do you have any last message to the parent who’s listening, who just needs to hear from you and your experience, what is one thing you would just share with them?

Jill: I think that what I would share would be, don’t wait, do something. I have met lots of parents over the years who have regretted waiting to get started to do something, to take that step and. And I get it because I’ve been there. It comes from fear and worry, if I take that step, am I going to find out that there’s a bigger problem, or whatever those fears are that we have. So, I’ve met lots of parents who waited a long time before they reached out to find some help and they regret it. But I’ve never met a parent who got help sooner, ever regret that.

Amy: So good. Okay, tell us where people can find you because you coach parents on how to do this, yes?

Jill: I do, yeah. I actually have an at home program for parents that includes online support and coaching from me. So, they can go to my website, www.thementormomblog.com. And over on my services page, I have all of my products and stuff. And if they go to the mentormomblog.com\resources, there are links to my products but as well as some other speech resources that they might find helpful, a checklist on those foundational language skills.

Amy: I love it. Amazing. This has been so helpful. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us and spending some time with us today and just helping us out so that we can keep growing these amazing kids.

Jill: Well, thank you so much for having me.

Don’t you just love all the fun things we’re learning on the show together? Well, we wanted to give you a chance to practice a little bit of it at home. And so, we made you a special freebie just for being a listener here and you can grab it at planningplaytime.com\special-freebie. That is planningplaytime.com\special-freebie. So what this freebie is, I’ll tell you, is an amazing alphabet activity that you can start using with your kiddos and it is based in play and is so fun.

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Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website planningplaytime.com. See you next week.