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the denmother podcast
5.30 Speech with Page Maughan
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How do we know if our baby's and toddler's language is developing normally? And what, if anything, can we do to help develop their language and speech?
Page Maughan is a mom to two adorable girls. She is also a certified Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) who specializes in neuro rehabilitation. She works with children in schools and in the hospital setting and she’s here today to answer all our questions about speech - what’s normal, what needs to be addressed with our kids. This is something we don't talk about nearly enough as parents. Listen in!
Page shares some of her favorite resources here:
https://www.asha.org/public/developmental-milestones/communication-milestones/
https://www.cdc.gov/act-early/milestones/index.html
https://autismnavigator.com/family-resources/
https://firstwordsproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/16-Gestures-x16-Months.pdf
If you have specific questions, you can e-mail her directly at: pagemaughan@gmail.com.
I'm Kitty Aki. I'm a mom of three, and I'm a good mom, but I'm always learning and growing, and I bet you are too. So join me on my mission to learn from moms from all walks of life because let's be honest, momming is way more fun when we do it together. Welcome to the Dead Mother Podcast. Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Dead Mother Podcast. I'm your host, Kitty Aki, and today is going to be a very practical episode, so I'm very excited about it because it's a topic I did not know about until I needed help in this area with my own kids. So let me read today's guest bio and then we'll get right into it. Paige Mon is a mom of two adorable girls. She's also a certified speech language pathologist who has worked in a variety of settings, including schools, hospitals, and early intervention. Paige has recently branched out into private practice with a focus on speech sound disorders. She's here today to answer all our questions about speech, what's normal and what needs to be addressed with our kids. Hi, Paige. How are you? I'm good.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk about this topic that I'm super passionate about. So thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I'm so excited to talk to you too. First of all, congratulations on your private practice. That's so exciting. How's it been going so far? I know you're super early.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I have been taking private clients like on a cash pay basis for a while, um, and just kind of like not even advertising myself, just getting word of mouth referrals from people who need help. Um, and so I'm at the point now where I'm gonna try to start marketing myself a little bit more. And I left my full-time job a couple of months ago. So I'm just kind of doing some part-time work here and there, and then trying to focus on um building up a caseload for myself.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing. Okay, so this is a motherhood podcast. So let's start by hearing your motherhood journey because I know there's a bit of a gap between your girls. So, did you guys have an easy time getting pregnant? What was it like for you becoming a mom?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so getting pregnant was quite easy for for both girls. So, luckily we were we were really lucky in that way. Um, and we had our first about two years after we were married. So it was kind of nope, that's not right. Uh it was we had we were in grad school when we got married. So we uh finished grad school, and then um about a year after that, we decided to start our family. And so um, yeah, so Isabel is my first, and she um I was super excited. My pregnancy felt great the whole time. It was a really like enjoyable experience. Um, but then right at the end of my pregnancy, I got pre-eclampsia. And so she was born four pounds, four ounces, and it was terrifying. Oh my gosh. Um, because I work in a field where I get to see a lot of things that can go wrong with pregnancies, um, and just kind of people moms ending up on a different journey than they expected to be on. And so I just worried about every single possibility. Um, and then she did great. She really she started out small, but she she did really well. She stayed small. My kids are just small. Yeah. But um, yeah, so then when she was 15 months old, she ended up in the hospital, the children's hospital for a week. So it was just like a really like crash landing, um, as far as like fear of health concerns and things like that. So we weren't sure we even wanted a second, but when we decided to, um, it wasn't hard to get pregnant again and it was great.
SPEAKER_00So that's good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's wow.
SPEAKER_00It's it's like we I know, right? We talk about this on the show all the time that motherhood and parenting in general is just a super humbling lesson that we are not in control. And it's like you can plan all the things, but you really there's so little control that you have. So um, yeah, it sounds like you really got thrown in the deep end there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And, you know, to be to be honest, it really wasn't that tough of a journey. Really, it was just the mental part of you know, facing the fear that I had of that something was going wrong with my daughter. I mean, yeah, she did end up in the hospital, and that was that was scary when she was 16 months old. She actually, or 15 months old, she had Guillaume Beret, which is really rare. Um, but it's also super curable. So we were just lucky that the things that went wrong were things that were easy to fix too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What a great way to look at that and just be grateful. So tell me how and when did you decide to get into speech pathology? And then have you been able to do any of the early intervention on your own kids since having kids? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So I'll start with the question about what got me into speech therapy. Um I uh my brother's deaf. So I grew up You didn't know that? Yeah. So he wore hearing aids all through my childhood. He has a moderate hearing loss. Um, and now it's severe. Well, it's moderate to to profound, and he had different hearing loss in each ear. But anyway, he had to rely on hearing aids as a kid, and he also had a lot of support and early intervention. My mom worked super hard with him. We used a lot of signs at home. So I knew I kind of wanted to go into something related to um helping people communicate because it was such a huge part of my childhood to like be his support to help him in situations where there were a lot of people communicating and a lot going on, um, and trying to make sure that he got everything kind of translated through to him because hearing aids are great and they do a lot to help people, but back in the 80s they weren't as good. And so I can imagine. Yeah, so that's kind of what started it. Um, and then I studied audiology in undergrad because I thought I might become an audiologist. And then when it came to making decisions about grad school, I studied linguistics for a while and really, or like I have a master's in linguistics as well. And so then it kind of fit that speech language pathology was the best fit for me. And um, so I became an assistant speech language pathologist in about uh 2010 and then um went to grad school in twenty thirteen, and uh that's still that kind of was when my career started.
SPEAKER_00Oh, amazing. And so when you had kids then, was it like you were watching for things or you noticed?
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, with my first, not with my second, but with my first, I was obsessive. I had like I had milestone trackers that I was always like checking everything off for her. And like I said, she was she was four pounds when she was born, and she had to come like about a month early. So I was like watching everything so closely that first year with her. And even beyond that, once I knew she was kind of on track and I but I still like kept a list of all of her first words and I was on the floor with her, like doing language strategies all the time. And then she turned out to be such a huge talker, like she just is so chappy all the time. So when I had my second, I was like, let's see what happens if I don't do that. Yeah. Um, but turns out she's also very talkative. So I uh it's one of those lessons that I learned that like you can do one way or the other, but the like your child might just be who they are. Who they are, yeah. I mean, it was, you know, I still talked to to my second and was on the floor and played with her too, but just not quite as intensely as I did with my first.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I do think at least I find this with myself, and I don't know if a lot of people are like this, you give yourself so much more grace and leeway with the second, and also you have so much less bandwidth when there's two versus one. So that's completely understandable. So you you mentioned milestones. Can you walk us through some of the things that we should be looking for from like early childhood on?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um, you know, in that first year, there's a lot of motor milestones and social milestones that are important. Language milestones aren't really important because kids don't really say their first words until they're about 12 months old. We do want them babbling sometime between like six to nine months. Um, I sent you a couple of milestone lists.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and I'll put all of those in the show notes so people can access those too.
SPEAKER_01Okay, great. Um, and so different milestone lists use different data, different research studies that have been done. So you're gonna get a variety of information on different milestones, but generally babies should start babbling around six months old, um, using kind of their first sounds, um, Bs and M's, mama, Baba, da-da, those kinds of things. And then by about one year old, um, they should start to have one or two words. And but that's not hard and fast. So I don't want anybody freaking out, like if their child is 12 months old and hasn't started doing that. Um, if they're babbling and they're starting to gesture around that time period, like pointing to things that they want, smiling, waving, reaching their hands up to be picked up, those are all really nice milestones for that one year mark. But between like 12 months to 15 months, I would hope that they would have their first couple of words. Okay. Um, around 18 months old, that's kind of this like classic point that speech language pathologists will like talk about together is like, how many words should a kid have? Or and pediatricians have asked me the same question too. By 18 months old, how many words should they have? And that's such a um, it's such a complicated question because there's so much variety in what children do in their development. And so some kids might have five to ten words and that's okay. And then some kids might have 200 words, 300 words. So it just really is there's so much variety in what's normal in the same way that when you go to the pediatrician and you get a percentile ranking on your child's weight and height, um, there's from you know, 16th percentile to 84th percentile is called considered the normal range. And we use those same percentile markers when we're doing evaluations for children. And it's normal to be in a 16th percentile. It's also normal to be in the 84th percentile. So, like a kid might have a ton of words and that's still normal, and they might only have a handful of words and that's normal. Um, so yeah, so that kind of puts us at 18 months. Then by two, we want kids to start having enough vocabulary that they can put two words together, usually. Um, and they're starting to kind of use two word phrases. Again, some kids might be using five-word sentences by two years old, and that's okay too. And it's okay if they're just starting to put their first two words together. Um, and then by three, they should be using kind of more sentences, and by four, kind of the more common grammar structures should start to be in place.
SPEAKER_00So when would we start to notice like something is maybe amiss? When when would a parent say, okay, I need to have my child looked at?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that's there's a several different answers to that question, but I'll why don't we start with what are some things that can delay speech?
SPEAKER_00Why don't we start there and then get into that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. Um, so yeah, because I was gonna say hearing loss is one thing that you always want to kind of keep an eye on. Um, but early on, usually they do hearing screenings at newborn hearing screenings. So most children are screened for that right away. Um, so if there is a hearing loss at birth, you would catch it. But it's still something to kind of keep an eye on in those first few months, um, making sure that your child is responding to sounds in their environment, turning to, you know, well, once they can turn their heads, um, but you can see their bodies startle if they hear a sound around them, and or they'll still their body if they hear a sound. Um, so hearing loss is one thing. Um, autism is another thing, um, which might not present itself until after 18 months, because some children will have typical development up until 18 months and then maybe have a regression. Um, but if they're already showing signs of autism, you can maybe even notice it at like nine months old because they're not smiling, they're not starting to socially engage by reaching or pointing. They're kind of more focused on, you know, kind of what's immediately around them and what they're interested in and not necessarily making eye contact as much with their parents or the people around them. So that can be noticed as early as nine months old. Um I wouldn't go like trying to get a child evaluated and diagnosed at that point, but I might start watching it at that point. Um, and I did send you some some of the milestone trackers that I sent you, um, include some from Autism Navigator. And they mentioned some of those things you're looking for, kind of in that nine to 12 month range and then 12 to 16 months. So um, yeah, so that's another one of the things that can be a delay. Um some children might have um medical diagnoses or disorders that are kind of more global in nature, and in that case, they might be late walking, they might be late with some of their motor milestones, um, like cerebral palsy is an example of something like that. But there are other, there's a thousands of other genetic disorders and things that might be, and usually those children are globally delayed, and that has has been picked up more on the motor side before they're even supposed to force speech.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So there, and there's a lot, it sounds like. So typically, if you're not doing early intervention, is it then school age children that you're normally seeing and parents bringing them in at that age?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so school-aged as well. Um, and usually, um, yeah, so yeah, that's kind of comes to the point of speech sound disorders. Um, and those can be caught at a variety of times. There's really um, because a child might um start talking and putting those two words, phrases together at two years old, like I mentioned, um, but just not have a wide variety of sounds that they're producing. They might be simplifying a lot of what they're saying into just a few speech sounds. So, um, and and we some of that's typical. Like most two-year-olds don't say the L sound or the R sound. So they would say my little rabbit instead of my little rabbit, right? And that's all normal. Yeah. Um, so but but speech sound disorders can present as early as two years old if they're more severe and they're not getting their earliest speech sounds that they should have, like P's and B, or sorry, B's and M's and D's are kind of the first ones that we want. And if they're not making those yet, and um, so speech sound disorders are kind of tricky because they um kind of they might just present as the child isn't using enough words yet. And so that's something that you're gonna want to have addressed anyway. But then it might be they are saying things and people are just not understanding them. So the rule of thumb for two and three-year-olds that I like to tell people is that you should understand about 50% of what a two-year-old says and 75% of what a three-year-old says.
SPEAKER_00So it's great to know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's kind of just a little rule of thumb. Um, but two is a long period of time, right? From 24 months to 36 months. Um that's not the math. Sorry. No, I can't, I can't do math right now myself. Yeah, it's I think it is 30. Let's see. Let's see. I can see it right. 24 months to 36 months. It's a wide range. So, you know, we're expecting kids to do as they're closer to three to be a little bit more understandable than they are right at two. Okay. If you feel like people are just not understanding your child and you're understanding, and you're like, this is what they're saying. Why doesn't anybody understand them? That might be a sign that there is, you know, something to consider. But again, 50% still allows a lot of room for them to not be understood. Oh, that's good to know. Yeah. And then there's some sounds that are harder later developing sounds, like the R sound, um, SH, CH, the J sound. Those a lot of times don't get identified until kindergarten school aged. Those are what we call the later developing sounds.
SPEAKER_00Okay, because that's I was gonna say, that's when my um kids were first. So two, obviously, I have a baby too, and so she hasn't been evaluated, but it was kindergarten when they caught it, and it was some of those sounds, the R sound, um TH, CH, SH, those types of sounds. And in the beginning, I was like, oh my gosh, but it's so cute. I don't want them to fix that. And then after a while, it's like, okay, we're in like first grade, second grade, and it's not getting better. And luckily, where we are, our school district offers speech therapy. Um, because I know people who have spent thousands and thousands on speech therapy privately. So, what other options are available to parents if you know their teacher or their caregiver, somebody flags like, hey, I think you should look into this, how would they go about getting care?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um so for if if children are in a public school education system anywhere in the United States, they are required to provide specialized education services for children with speech disorders. Now, that is going to vary by what the school district determines is necessary for their education. Um, and so when children are kind of kindergarten, first, second grade, some of those error sounds might still be within the normal range of, well, they might still grow out of it. Um, and so the school district won't have a reason to justify it because they sound close enough to their peers. They don't always start to really be more concerned about it until the child is getting a little bit older, second, third grade, and maybe they haven't fixed some of those later developing sounds. And then it starts to be risky for social, like um, like they're gonna maybe be made fun of by their peers and then they're gonna stop wanting to stop, stand up and talk in front of the class, that kind of thing. Um, but yeah, so that it depends on how severe it is. But um, in kindergarten, uh if the kindergarten teacher notices it and is concerned about it, they will make a referral to the speech therapist, and then the speech therapist will evaluate the child. And again, they're gonna give you a percentile ranking kind of score based off of the testing that they do and determine if it's significant enough to provide to provide services for, because they don't want to be pulling children out of class unnecessarily if the child is gonna grow out of that speech error that they have. So um, and then early intervention is um also part of IDEA, which is what requires school districts to have um special education services. Early intervention is also required. So every state is required to have services for children that are identified with delays under three years of age.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and so they can go through their school system to find it's not always the school system.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, so here in Utah, it's usually not the school system. Davis County does have, well, I guess this is probably for listeners from all over the country, but um yeah, so we have different setups depending on the county that you live in, whether it's run through the school district or whether it's run through like a public agency, like a health agency or the state. Um in Utah, we have some universities that run them. Um so it really varies by state. Um usually your pediatrician should be able to connect you with early internet services to get evaluated.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's good to know. Now, so you mentioned that it's when it's through the school, when they're being pulled out of class, it's only related to if it affects learning. And so we had to, my oldest has one sound he has not perfected, but they were like, we can understand him 80 plus percent of the time. And so we can't say that it's affecting learning, so we're gonna pull him out. And I was so sad because I was like, oh, he's making so much progress, but they just couldn't, based on the guidelines that are there, they couldn't move forward with him. So that was a bummer, but uh I did want to mention so speech therapy, at least in our state, is considered special education. So have you found that there's any stigma or that parents feel strange about putting their kids in special education? And how do we break that stigma?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I do think calling it special education does kind of have a stigma to it. Um, I think the primary reason that exists is because people have an idea of what they think it is and they aren't familiar with how much variety there is in what special education is. So um I tend to say specialized education because I wanted to kind of focus on the fact that the child needs something specialized for them. Um, and it kind of takes away that stigma of special education. But um yeah, like I think it's just a lack of familiarity. Um Because most parents that I have worked with, once their child is getting services, they're so happy that they're getting them. Yes. And so it's kind of just like anything else. If you kind of close it off and don't allow yourself to think about it or consider the possibility of it, it's much scarier than it actually is once you move forward in the direction of making progress with it. So I think part of that is on people like you who've had to have their children get speech therapy services to just be totally open about it and confident about it and kind of letting people know that what they're doing is actually really helpful for their child and important for their child's progress rather than kind of being ashamed of it.
SPEAKER_00Totally. And I think also things like this, like having a conversation about it, helps because if had I not gone through this with my kids, I would not even realize this was a thing. And for me, it was like when I found out it was special education and I had to sign the forms saying I I uh authorized the school to provide special education, it wasn't a bad thing for me. It was just like an oh, huh, okay. Um, so yeah, I think the more we talk about it, especially for new parents, like, oh, okay, this is something to watch out for. And if I need to tap into these services, then it that's great. You know, it's because like you said, I was so thrilled that it was offered and that my kids are making huge strides with their speech because of this basically free service that is offered to them. So yeah, I thought it was just great. Um, what do you think people going on that, you know, stigma road, what do you think people don't know about speech therapy that would surprise them or, you know, misconceptions?
SPEAKER_01Um well, I think one of the biggest things is just how much variety there is in what speech language pathologists do. Um because we can work in hospital settings, we can work with feeding, we can work with, you know, how words are said and pronounced, we can work with increasing vocabulary, we work with stuttering, we work with cognitive disorders in adults and pediatrics. Um, we work with children with ADHD and you know, there's just so much variety. And the same goes for special education, special education teachers in the schools. Um, they're often working with children that are cognitively just like all of their peers, but they might have dyslexia or they might have a specific learning disorder that's just impacting one area of their learning. Um, so I think kind of the broad generalizations of um special education or speech therapy are kind of not really the full picture, and there's a lot more going on. I'd say that's probably the biggest misconception. Um and yeah, but like I said, we work on swallowing, feeding, things that might not even be addressed in a school setting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, interesting. Okay. I have a very personal question that I don't know if will apply to everybody, but I'm so curious about this because I've noticed with my daughter, um, specifically when I read her books, I'll read all age ranges so that she can see the pictures, but I will use words she knows. So I'll say, like, oh, baby sad, baby happy, baby night, night, sun, moon. And so I'll boil it down into like the basic words that she knows. And then even from, oh gosh, in like 12 months, I could see her eyes open or her eyes go to different pictures because she was starting to get it. Um, and so is that does that delay if I'm not using like bedtime, but I'm saying night night, does that delay speech or is that helpful for speech?
SPEAKER_01I think you're gonna get different answers from different speech therapists if you ask that question. I like to kind of do a variety of both. I try not to use ungrammatical phrases. So, like instead of saying baby sad, I would say that baby is sad, and then kind of highlight the words that I want her to pick up, but leaving the grammar there for her to know that something does go there. But if you don't do that, I still don't think that's gonna really harm your child's development, as long as they're hearing um regular grammatical formations throughout your routines, like when you're talking to your other children, or even just, hey, now it's time for us to get our shoes on, because you're probably also using complete sentences all throughout your day on top of that. True.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And and I I noticed too, like we have evolved as it goes. Like she would call food numnums. So I would say, okay, numnums, or time for numnums. And then in books, I would say numnums. But then as she understood numnums, I could say, okay, it's breakfast, ready for breakfast. And then she would understand, oh, numnums means breakfast, numnums means lunch, numnums means eat. And so it would evolve, but it would start out with something I knew she knew. And I don't know if this is me being crazy, but Paige, I have noticed like we do not have tantrums because I can see what she's sad about and I can address it with words she understands, and then she instantly calms down because I can say, no no numnums, time for shoes. And then she's like, okay, or I'll say shoes first, then numnums in really short sentences. Yeah. And so she'll start to cry and then she'll correct and be like, oh, okay, I'm gonna do shoes, then numnums. And so she gets it. So it's like we don't have and knock on wood, we'll see. She's almost two, but like we it feel it has felt like I've been able to communicate with her since about 12 months and she's got it. And if she starts to cry, I can explain it to her in a very simple way that she gets. Is that me being crazy or is that is there something to that?
SPEAKER_01No, I think the most important thing that I heard from what you described is that you're listening and you're tuned into your daughter. So you're paying attention to her. Exactly. When you were talking about reading books for with her, you were talking about watching her eye gaze and what she was looking at because you were listening to her. And I'm putting listening in like air quotes here because um she might not be using words. What you're listening for is not necessarily words, but her interest and what she's interested in, what excites her, what she likes and doesn't like, and you're tuned into that. And that is probably the most important thing of all, more so than how you say, whether you say numbs or you say breakfast. Yeah. That you're giving her like your attention and you're using words to respond to what you're seeing from her. And that's great. I often forget that step when I'm working with parents, and then I realize, like, oh, they don't have this skill of listening to their child and tuning in and paying attention to what their child is interested in. And that's probably the biggest pitfall that I see. Parents, they start to get anxious because their child isn't talking, and then they start trying too hard. And they're like, here's this, this is a shoe, this is wall, look at this. What's this? What's this? What color is it? And then it kind of becomes super overwhelming for the child. And then the parent isn't focused on what is the child experiencing, but rather what they want their child to be learning. And you gotta gear down and like tune into your child first before you even start worrying about how or what you say. Um, a lot of times I'll see a uh a child like around two playing with a toy that they're interested in. And it might be something super simple, like a bottle, like a plastic bottle or something like that. And then the parent is like, look at this book, look at these blocks, look at this other thing. And the child is like fully engaged with like, I don't know, let's say putting like a rock in a plastic bottle or something like that. And instead, they're trying to redirect their child to something they want their child to be learning. But instead, you could take that opportunity to be like, rock, let's put it in. Change, change, dump it out. And you like could really be engaging with a thing your child is interested in, and rather try than trying to redirect them to something that you think is educationally appropriate and important for them at that time.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's so good. And just use those opportunities as they come. Because I was like, I've been trying to think back to when my boys were small, and I cannot. But I was like, when we go to the pediatrician and they're like, Are the is she saying 20 words? I'm like, she's saying 300 words. And then we went to the library, and this mom was like, She's so verbal. Why is she? And she's like, My kid doesn't even say two words and he's the same age. And I was like, Is that because of this? I guess I'll call it early intervention, or is it just her, or is it we don't, I guess we don't know. It could be both. It could be.
SPEAKER_01Like I would always tell parents that had child children with language delays. Um, you could have sat on the couch and watched Netflix while your child was developing and they might have still learned to talk. Or you could have been down on the floor doing everything with them and they might still have a language delay. Um, so some people are just predisposed to have a language delay for who knows why. There are a variety of reasons. There is a genetic component. A lot of times uh speech and language delays do run in families. Um but um I think I mean, obviously you're gonna give your child a leg up if you're on the floor. If you're trying, yeah. Yeah, and um so actually now I forgot what you just asked.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, I was just asking, is it her? Is it this early intervention we're trying? So it's yeah, I guess it's hard to tell, but I think you're helping her either way, like if helping her. Yeah, and those opportunities of like she picks something up and I say, Yes, yellow. Because she same thing with the evolution of it. She would color and she would say, color mama, well, she calls it duller, dollar, mama, dollar, and I'd say, okay, duller, and I'd give her her crayons and her coloring book. And then as she knew this means color, I would say, okay, color yellow, color green. And so now she knows, oh, this is green, this is yellow. So as I'm like, she's got that, we can move on to this. Um, but yeah, I don't remember doing that with my boys. Uh, and maybe that's why they had, I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_01No, because they were they were probably not late talkers at all. Like they just disorders.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Different. And maybe I'm more aware of it because of them that I'm watching her. But yeah, I don't remember even this being on my radar when they were kids. I don't know. But anyway.
SPEAKER_01Um, but I did want to say a couple of things too. Please do. Um, because I I I started to kind of say this earlier when you were talking about calling it numnums, and then I said I like to do a little bit of both. Yeah. So I like to model something that's accessible for the child to imitate if they're imitating. So if what she's saying is numnum, then I would probably model that so she could imitate that. But then I would finish it by saying, you're eating, or whatever. Yeah, you know, kind of like speci like.
SPEAKER_00Like you're eating numnums, something like that, in corporate.
SPEAKER_01Or just like, or if she says numnums, you respond back, yeah, numnums, you're eating. It's yummy. So expand on the exactly expanding on what's accessible to her and what she's naturally doing, and then um expanding on it. So I I often start out with like words like in and out because that's one what babies are interested in, but they're also really easy words to say. If a baby says, eh, that sounds like enough like in to make it in. And so simplifying it so that it's accessible to them to imitate or say is great, but you also want them to know how it fits into the grand scheme of communication and language.
SPEAKER_00Ooh, that's so good. So, so yes, what I'm hearing is repeat back what they say, then expand to add grammar to expand it a little bit more. Okay, so I know we are supposed to read to our babies from like birth on, partly for the language development. What else should we be doing when they're little to help them with speech development?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So books are uh super important. And on that, I want to say um they might not be interested so early on, or you might think they're not interested. So with my first, I would was reading books to her at like seven months old and thinking, like she just doesn't care. Well, her business fan isn't there yet. It's not supposed to be. Um, and so I think it's easy for parents to think, well, they don't like books. So kind of start just not doing it. But as you know and I know, the more you keep exposing them to it, the more they get interested in it, especially if you have a handful of favorite books that you're regularly modeling to them so that they know what's coming up next in that book and they're like starting to predict it. It's that familiarity, the routine of it. Um so routines are so important for like tell me about routines. Yeah, and I don't necessarily mean schedule routines, but I mean verbal routines. And repetition. Those same words that you use every day in the same context, that's when it starts to click for them. And then seeing those words used in at grandma's house, at the grocery store, at different places, so that they're seeing, like, oh, I know what that word means. I know what a dog is from this book I read, but then I saw a dog on the street and I knew that was a dog too, so that they can really, because like there's a ton of variety of what a dog is, right? They could be tiny, they could be huge, they could be cartoon, they can be scary. There's just a lot of variety. Um, and so kind of having that's kind of going away from the verbal routine thing. But the point is you want to kind of start with things that they can hear every day. Um, and kind of not necessarily using the exact same script every single time, but highlighting some keywords, um, maybe having a script for certain things like time to eat, time for bath, like wash, wash, wash. Um just kind of kind of using the same words every day um and not not quizzing them and expecting, what is this? What is this? Like that's just not it. It's about you being consistent about modeling the words that you want them to learn in context that are important to them, like their daily routines or like the play activities that they like. So that okay.
SPEAKER_00So not quizzing them, is there any any time when we should be like, what's this, what's that? Or no, you don't need to. No. Wow.
SPEAKER_01I mean I want them imitating first. So like around 12 to 18 months, when you you know that phase that babies and a lot of children go through, some go through it a little bit later where they just copy everything that you say. We call them call me cats, they're little like copy cats. Um typically it should happen around 15 months old that babies kind of just start saying everything. Uh I want them there first, where they're just like imitating everything. And then instead of asking what's this, kind of having a play routine that you do with them that you can repeat, like tickles is a good example, or peekaboo. Um you can play any kind of way with your kid, like you know, banging on the table, whatever it is, but where you do the thing and say the word and then pause and wait for them to fill in the blank with what comes next. Oh, that's good. Yeah, turn taking is is probably one of the first things that I start out explaining to people because you can turn take with a nine-month old. Um yeah, like banging on a table and then they bang on the table, um, or covering, you know, covering your face and then doing peek-aboo. Like they can copy those actions, and copying the actions builds to copying sounds, builds to copying words.
SPEAKER_00Um, that's so good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so turn taking is super duper important in play because it's got to be fun and and motivating and engaging for them.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's so good. Paige, tell me what is the most fulfilling part of what you do?
SPEAKER_01Um, well, you know, as we're talking about this, it's a couple of things. Probably the first thing though is first words. I just love it when kids don't have words, and I can explain to a parent in these simple ways the simple changes, like little tweaks to what they're already doing that create these opportunities for the child to like really grow and expand. Um, because a lot of times people are doing what you're talking about and asking those questions and thinking this should work. Like I'm holding up a thing and saying, What is this? Why is my child not answering? But it's because they haven't said ball enough for their child to say, that's a ball. They have to, you know, say those things a lot. And so kind of getting that little change. I mean, I just like coming in and modeling it really. And then the child responds to it, and the parents like, oh, like that's what I'm doing slightly differently that's not working as well. So I love first words. I really love getting kids to start saying their first words. And then I I also really like um oh well, there's a thing called apraxia, which I haven't really quite mentioned yet, but it's like a severe speech sound disorder. So children that um really just have a hard time moving their mouth to make the sounds, so it's not necessarily weakness, they're eating and drinking fine, but they can't coordinate the movement to do the speech sounds. It requires so much work to fix it. It's a really things where they need more than just like school speech therapy, probably, because it's gonna take a really long time to fix it. But if they can kind of get started on it um with more intensive therapy, it's gonna make faster progress. But um, so I love really like helping that child figure out how to move their mouth to like make new sounds and then growing their vocabulary because they're growing the amount of sounds that they can do. Um, and that's really satisfying too, because they go from not being understood to being understood. And that I like that's really exciting to me too.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's amazing. Now, do you ever okay, as you're talking, it just reminded me I was a news news reporter for many years. And I remember there was um this other reporter, he was gay and he was adorable, but he would always make his S's really long. And the news director was like, Kitty Iki, can you work with him? And so we were like working on the word boxes, and he would be like, Boxes, and I'd be like, Okay, put the emphasis on the boxes, like on the ox. And he and he like could not do it. And I was like, he needs an actual, and I do think they do speech therapy for professionals as well. But I was like, I'm yeah, yes. I was like, I'm just some random, you know, news reporter. I can't help him. But have you ever worked with adults? And how is that different from working with kids?
SPEAKER_01No. Oh, so I've worked with adults that have had strokes and they also have apraxia. So in children, it's called childhood apraxia of speech, and adult adults, it's called apraxia. But it's the same general problem of like the message from their brain that they totally know the word boxes or then whatever the word is that they want to say, but they can't make their mouth do it. That's not the case of this guy that you're talking about. Yeah, he was just an accent that needed to be modified. Um, but yeah, so I have worked with adults with apraxia of so of and so they're relearning how to talk. And it's really frustrating for them. I can totally see it because they're just like because they had it probably once, right? They absolutely did. They're all people that have been talking their whole lives and then they have a stroke and are having to like relearn all those motor patterns. Um, and sometimes it's the words, they're having to relearn the words. But some but if it's a praxia, they're having to relearn the movement for how to produce the sound on their mouth. Um, and so that is uh yeah, it's just a lot of work and it's a lot of like getting in people's faces and moving my mouth while they're moving theirs. So they're kind of firing those mirror neurons to get their mouths to do it. Um but there is accent modification, which is a whole other thing that I am. My dad's done that. Yeah. Oh yeah. So like it's something I'm interested in because I I, you know, I speak a couple of other languages and um linguistics is my background before I became a speech therapist. And so I have an interest in like seeing what kind of clientele there could be out there for it. Because I think it's a lot of times the vowels, like when you're describing it was the boxes instead of boxes. And so it's like that E, the, the one how we spell the word. Yeah, boxes. Um, and so like it's just like let's modify that vowel and change it up just a little bit. And so it there's some overlap of how a speech therapist could help with that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00That's so fun. My dad used to, so my dad's from the Dominican Republic, and he would repeat phrases, um, and they were always silly and always funny, and we would make we would like all joke about them because one of them was seven dwarves sit uh, seven dwarves in a cave taking turns, doing headstands. But he would, but he would practice it every day and say it over and over. And we were like, what if That what is that? But it was just so funny. And he actually has the best diction, and he would tell us all the time enunciate Kiriyaki, enunciate. And he always wanted us to have very clear diction. I wonder maybe because of that, but that could be something cool for you to look into. Yeah, it definitely is.
SPEAKER_01It's definitely on my like radar as a possibility to just like maybe expand. Um I don't know how the market is in Utah, so I think it would be a lot of online type work.
SPEAKER_00But oh yeah, it could be all over the world.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like I could have clients from you know different countries that are wanting to profess where we live. Yeah. So and it's different than just like an English tutor or English as a second language. It's once they already have language, but they're not confident because they're worried about how they're saying the words.
SPEAKER_00Um that's so good. Okay, now, Paige, I know like in leading up to this interview, we have talked about the breadth of your work, like and speech pathologist work in general. There's so many things to cover. I know there's no way we're gonna cover everything today, but is there something you were hoping to talk about that we didn't touch on yet?
SPEAKER_01Um no, but there's like so much more I want to say about like the early childhood development thing. And and I'm just gonna say this because it's like I gotta say it for as many parents as could be listening. Children don't learn their colors until they're two and a half. So I don't care at all if a child knows their colors by two or whatever. Okay. And colors aren't even that important as far as vocabulary goes, right? Because it's so much more important to talk about um what something is doing or like other descriptive features. So verbs, adjectives, obviously nouns. We're always highlighting nouns, ball, cracker, juice, apple, dog. But then what is that object doing is more important to me than what color it is.
SPEAKER_00Oh and do do we often go to colors first as parents?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so, and I didn't mean this, like when you said it earlier, it wasn't about this, isn't about you, because this is just like oh, you can tell me, Pete. No, no, no, it's not about you, I promise. Because it's something that I like it, I see it everywhere. It's it everywhere. Like shapes also are is another one that I'm like, who cares? That's a big skill. Um, for like late. Interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So good to know.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's okay if your daughter knows her colors at 18 months old. Like, that's great. But she could also have a much more expansive vocabulary that's not even doesn't even include colors. Um, they become important, like you know, three to four years old when they're in preschool and they, you know, it's kind of those pre-academic skills. But as far as early language goes, they're not really that important.
SPEAKER_00Um Wow. And so verbs. I I was just thinking, so my daughter will spin and then we'll say spin, spin, and she'll go spin, spin, and then spin, or she'll bounce in her crib and say, and I'll go bounce, bounce, and she'll go bounce, bounce, and copy me. So I'm like, okay, maybe I gotta focus on more verbs. Yeah. What are you doing? Running, walking, stepping, biking.
SPEAKER_01That's interesting. This is another great, like area where there's words that are important. Yeah. And like color will become important when they're, I mean, if she's already coloring, it's not like you don't need to say the colors. I don't mean it that way. If you're gonna spend time focusing on something, you're gonna get a lot more bang from your for your buck on other types of vocabulary than like beating your head against the wall, trying to get your kid to learn colors when it's not even necessarily something that children are ready to learn. Like when I was saying I was worried my daughter didn't like books when she was seven months old or didn't want to sit through whole books when she was seven months old. She just, her brain wasn't ready for it. So, a lot of children, they're not ready to learn colors until they're about two and a half or so. So um, and it's really common for kids to learn a color word and use it for everything, like blue is every single color, and that's okay. Like, let them do that. You can keep saying the right thing, but like don't stress if your kid isn't learning their colors until they're two and a half to three. Because that's totally okay. But if she's learning it, like that's great. It's not that there's nothing wrong with that. It's just okay, it's just you might get more bang for your buck with something else, and then come to colors in a year when your child is more developmentally ready. Good to know. Okay, cool. But it is like the easy for parents to go to those pre-academic skills first, like triangle, rectangle, pentagon. And I'm like, your kids do.
SPEAKER_00Like they don't care. Give them a break. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. Okay. So we are at the end. I will link to all your stuff so people can reach out if they have questions, if they need to, um, if they need support for their kids. Paige is an excellent resource, as you can tell. She just really knows her stuff. So the last thing I want to say, Paige. Um, actually, before we get to the last thing, will you tell everybody where to find you? And now that you have your private practice?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I totally haven't bought my website yet. So um how about I get back to you on that and that's great. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We'll put it in the show notes. I know it's brand new, guys. So get in on the ground floor.
SPEAKER_01Right now, my phone number is like the only way that I have people getting in touch with me, which I am not quite ready to share either. So um because that's like right now, that's what I'm using because I have just kind of a very small caseload of two to three kids. But um yeah, as I get expanded, I would like to be able to give you that so that you can Yeah, I will add it.
SPEAKER_00So by the time this airs, hopefully I'll have some handle or some way an email that I can link in the show notes and you can get a hold of Paige. Um now, Paige.
SPEAKER_01Actually, I could give you my email address right now if you wanted to. Yeah, let's do that. It's Page Mon P A G E M A U G H A N at Gmail.com.
SPEAKER_00Okay, perfect. So I'll at least have Paige's email. If you guys are worried at all about your kids' speech development, definitely reach out to Paige. Now, Paige, I always do this really woo-woo thing at the end where leading up to each interview, I pray over my guests. And if I hear anything or see anything, I share it with them. Is it okay if I share something with you? And you can say no.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I'd love it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yay. Okay, so Paige, this might feel really overwhelming, especially because you're in the beginning stages of your business, but I saw an entire brand for you. It was a fully fleshed out business that included, don't get overwhelmed, um, a book, social media, a TV segment, a podcast. And the podcast specifically felt very strong because the you had guests that were actual parents with actual speech needs for their kids. So it was like Dr. Phil, but for speech. Uh it was so interesting. And then um, yeah, the other thing I heard was this is a whole corner yet to be claimed, and God can show you how if you want him to. There and he told me specifically, I have so many ideas. And I was like, oh my gosh. And so after I heard this page, I went on Instagram to see like what kind of speech language pathologists are out there. There was like five accounts and they were all like very brand new, not a lot of followers. And I was like, you can dominate here. So let me know. I have done some of these things, so I would be happy to help you as you're you know building your business. But I love it.
SPEAKER_01I love it. It I get excited about it, then I get scared. And the reason that I haven't moved forward is because I have been scared of just making the lead to not, but now I don't have a full-time job, so I really can like take some time to expand what I'm doing. And um yeah, so a podcast is definitely something I've thought of on top of my private practice um and Instagram as well. So that's kind of a starting place for sure.
SPEAKER_00That would be great. And uh reach out to me. I'm happy to save you some months of heartache with what I've learned over the last five years. But um, as you're as you're ready, like, yeah, we can talk about it whenever you want to, because I know it's baby steps. Let's get your foundation built and then go from there.
SPEAKER_01I love your support and your premonition for me. It's great.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thanks, Paige. Well, thank you for being on here. I appreciate you so much, and it was so nice to see your beautiful face.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. You too. I appreciate you having me here. Thanks so much. Oh, my pleasure. Bye, friend. Bye.
SPEAKER_00This has been the Dead Mother Podcast. Remember, new episodes drop every Tuesday. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a review. It really does help. Special thanks to Jose Cerna for our theme music and Katie Legou for our cover art.
