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What I tell my patients’ parents is that the connection between the esophagus (the food tube) and the stomach doesn’t close tightly in babies.  This junction (the “lower esophageal sphincter”) is a circular ring of muscle that, in older kids and adults, squeezes tightly so that food and liquids don’t come back up.  This isn’t…

1. UNOCCUPIED PLAY I know this can be hard to believe, but play starts at birth. You know those random movements that Infants make with no clear purpose? This is actually the beginning of play. 2. SOLITARY PLAY This stage, which starts in infancy and is common in toddlers, is when children start to play…

Every child’s ability to communicate develops gradually over time. In It Takes Two to Talk,  the Hanen parent guidebook, we divide early communication and language development into four stages:  Discoverers – react to how they feel and to what is happening around them, but have not yet developed the ability to communicate with a specific purpose…

Your baby only makes a few sounds between the ages of 7-12 months. Your child mostly just points to communicate his needs. Your child doesn’t communicate or play with others in a social setting after the age of 18 months with peers their own age. You or others have a hard time understanding what your child…

The sensory personality can be divided into four different types, the social butterfly, the slow to warm up, the sensitive and the settled. “What makes us unique individuals is that each person filters sensory input to varying degrees.”  “Since we all filter sensory input differently, this underlying process affects our personalities.” View more at: https://www.theblessedbarrenness.co.za/sensory-personality-winning-the-fussy-eater-battle/?fbclid=IwAR1DTY7f4YWXjOJrQU2dGwZfA9RHcr4CDxMPMxfWDU8p0RmuE-YGM3k3e_M 

Seven per cent of children aged five have speech difficulties. Stephanie Bell talks to two families whose youngsters’ lives have been transformed by speech and language therapists. The number of children struggling to talk is rising dramatically, taking over dyslexia as the most common special educational need. Speech and language difficulties are traditionally found among…

Parents tell us that the It Takes Two to Talk Program is extremely informative and helpful; they say that they learn some very concrete and practical ways to encourage their child’s communication development – and that they and their child have much more fun together than they did before. In addition to these changes in their…

How many times have we all heard that behavior is communication? If you parent a child with autism, the chances are you are very familiar with that phrase. I think the tricky part is figuring out what your child is actually saying with his or her behavior. And it is so important, because once the root…

Dummy, pacifier, binky, soother … call them what you will, you probably have a few questions about them. At least once a week online and at every talk I ever do, I get the same questions on dummies. Many parents wonder about the value of dummies, if they should be used at all, how they…

When we think of the early skills that prepare young children for academic success, we often think of things like math or early literacy skills. It’s true that a child’s preschool math skills predict their success in that subject later on, just as their early literacy skills predict their later reading ability. But imagine a…