Does hearing loss impact speech and language development?

Yes! Hearing loss refers to a child’s difficulty hearing. The severity of hearing loss can range from mild to severe. A child who has hearing loss may be able to understand only some of the information that is said to them. They could miss hearing certain sounds or specific details in words and sentences.  In addition to this, they may have difficulty expressing themselves as they could have trouble developing their vocabulary and learning appropriate grammatical structures.  

What causes hearing loss? 

You may have not considered getting your child’s hearing reassessed as it was ‘perfect’ at birth. However, there are so many factors that can contribute to developing hearing loss after birth. For example, when there is fluid in the ears, the auditory tube assists in draining this fluid into the back of the throat. However, if fluid does not drain from this space, it gets trapped in the middle ear space. When the ear fills up with fluid, sound doesn’t pass to the brain adequately.   

The most common cause for this is ear infections. When your child has an ear infection, there is a build-up of infected fluid inside the middle ear. Often antibiotics will clear up the infection but leave the fluid, causing your child’s hearing to be ‘muffled’. If your child hasn’t suffered from an ear infection, this can still occur. Common colds and allergies can also lead to fluid build-up in the ear.

What to do? 

Do not sit and wait! If you are concerned about your child’s communication development or suspect hearing loss in your child, seek professional advice ASAP! A team of professionals might be involved in supporting you and your child when there is any hearing loss.

-       Speech pathologists will help to close the gap of any speech and language delays caused by a hearing loss.

-       Audiologists will assess your child’s hearing abilities and suggest appropriate intervention.

-       ENT specialists may also be involved in the intervention process of remediating any causes for a hearing loss.

We love how this Flintstones video represents different hearing loss severities! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD5E88fFnxE 

 If you are concerned about your child’s speech and language development, contact us on 02 8541 1416 or info@movingmountainstherapy.com.au for a chat!

Is Your Child Ready for School?

Preparing your child for school is an exciting and nerve racking experience for most families at the best of times. Ensuring your child is ready for school is another thing all together.

Occupational therapists and speech pathologists support families and educators to incorporate appropriate strategies in their daily routines. This helps develop good school readiness skills and allows for an easy transition into the school environment.

Below is a checklist to help ease some of the anxiety in ensuring your child is ready for Kindy!

OT Skills

✓      Well established fine motor skills – fine motor skills at school are essential as children will build on their current skill set to start to form letters, words and sentences. Can your child: write their name? Draw a detailed picture? Hold a pencil with their thumb and pointing finger, and their middle finger ‘resting’ behind?

✓      Coordination and gross motor skills – Can your child copy and plan motor movements? Can your child hold a posture? If children have difficulty with balancing or copying motor movements it may be a sign that they have poor postural control. This can make sitting in a chair for extended periods tricky, so a child may appear to be ‘disruptive’ by constantly moving. Difficulty copying movements may be a sign of poor motor planning.

✓      Attention and concentration – Being able to attend to a task for a period of time is one of the main key indicators for school readiness. If a child has difficulty with attention and concentration they may miss key instructions and have difficulty completing a task. In a new and fast paced environment children can quickly fall behind and their academic performance can suffer.

Speech and language skills

✓      Clear articulation – a child’s speech continues to develop until they are 8 years old. This means that children may make some sound errors when starting school. Some common errors include saying ‘w’ for ‘r’ or ‘f’ for ‘th’. Despite these errors, children starting school should be understood 100% of the time they speak.

✓      Following instructions – children starting school should be able to follow 3 step instructions (e.g. ‘get your lunch, put your hat on and line up’).  If children have difficulty following instructions, they may have difficulty completing tasks independently and may also appear to be misbehaving.

✓      Understanding concepts – those specifically relating to sequence (e.g. first, second, last, after), size (e.g. big, small, short, tall), location (e.g. behind, in front of, top, bottom), and time (e.g. yesterday, tomorrow, days of the week).

✓      Expressive communication - using sentences of approximately 6 words. Sentences should include correct use of grammar (e.g. he, she, they etc.), joining words (and, so, because etc.) and prepositions (e.g. on, in, under).

✓      Pre-reading skills – knowledge of letter-sound correspondence, recognising rhymes, clapping syllables and identifying the first sound of words.

If you would like to access more information or have any questions visit www.movingmountainstherapy.com.au or email us at info@movingmountainstherapy.com.au.

By  Erin Criticos (SP) and Marie Criticos (OT)

How did Therasuit originate?

So how did Therasuit Therapy Originate? 

Richard and Izabela Koscielny are the founders of Therasuit Therapy. Their story began when their first daughter Kaya was born with cerebral palsy. Izabela and Richard being two qualified physiotherapists and former athletes tried numerous treatment programs for Kaya, however none failed to bring the results they had hoped for. Only one treatment facility in Poland showed significant results, and this is where they learned the intensive style of physical therapy as well as the use of the 'Rehabilitation Suit'. 

BUT WAIT! What is the Therasuit? Or the Rehabilitation Suit?

The Rehabilitation Suit was developed from the original Penguin suit used in Russia's space program. The suit was designed to counteract the harmful effects of weightlessness on the body after returning from long periods in space. It has since been refined into a model that helps children with cerebral palsy and other neuromuscular disorders. 

Ok, so lets continue.. Izabela and Richard returned to the States and in 1994 introduced this style of therapy to America. In 2001 Izabela and Richard designed and patented their own version of the Rehabilitation Suit called the 'Therasuit'. They set up their first clinic in Keego Harbour and to this day change the lives of many families with children suffering from cerebral palsy and neurodevelopment disorders. If you need an example of their success you need to just look at their daughter Kaya, who has now finished university with a Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Administration and since 2012 works at the Therasuit LLC office. Richard and Izabela dedicated enormous amounts of time researching the benefits of intensive therapy and strength training for cerebral palsy. They are now the leaders in treatment for children with cerebral palsy and have trained more than 3,500 therapists in over 470 clinics.

Research has shown that after any brain injury their is great potential for the brain to repair and reorganise itself to compensate for the damage and loss of cells. This is achieved through repetitive muscle strengthening and active functional movements performed in various ways. 

Through intensive repetitive training, patients make significant gains. The main goal of intensive therapy is to increase the child's strength and to allow movement to become automatic and more normalised. This ensures that once the intensive is complete, along with a practical home program, patients will continue to make improvements. Children who undergo intensive therapy make amazing achievements in sensory processing and motor skills through strength, flexibility, endurance, balance coordination and enhanced functional skill training. They reach significant motor milestones which they had not been able to previously achieve through traditional therapy such as rolling, crawling, sitting, standing and even walking for the first time.