language development Tag

29 Sep

Posted at 13:50h in Speech

Notice: This post is provided for background information only. Consult your healthcare provider or a licensed speech-language pathologist for specific advice regarding a child's communication development or speech therapy needs.

Children build communication skills through repeated practice, clear feedback, and steady support. Speech therapy works best when sessions follow a reliable schedule that matches a child's goals and daily needs. Regular visits give therapists enough information to measure changes, adjust activities, and address new concerns before they slow development. Families seeking speech therapy in Saint Peters, MO can use consistent appointments as the foundation for meaningful progress. According to ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association), speech and language disorders are among the most common developmental concerns in children, and early, consistent intervention by a licensed speech-language pathologist is associated with significantly better long-term communication outcomes.

[caption id="attachment_76348" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Consistent Speech Therapy- pexels Photo by Gustavo Fring[/caption]

27 Nov

Posted at 15:17h in Author Interviews, Autism, Nature, Pediatrics
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_46215" align="alignleft" width="149"]Michael Lombardo, PhD Assistant professor of Psychology the University of Cyprus  Dr. Lombardo[/caption] Michael Lombardo, PhD Assistant professor of Psychology the University of Cyprus  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Autism is a diagnostic label we give to children with difficulties in the areas of social-communication and restricted, repetitive stereotyped behaviors and interests. The diagnosis is made based on observations about behavior and is a consensus label, meaning that clinicians can show high degrees of agreement that a given set of behaviors is ‘autism’. But aside from the diagnostic label, there is a fair degree of heterogeneity within patients that have the diagnosis. One way in which patients are heterogeneous is with regard to early language development. Some toddlers with autism are minimally verbal, while at the other end, many toddlers with autism develop language typically. An important question to answer is whether that kind of difference in language development indicates a subtype with different underlying biology. To examine this question, we first split toddlers with autism into two subtypes defined by their language outcome at 4 years of age. Some toddlers were classified as poor language outcome, because their language performance was 1 standard deviation below typical norms. Other toddlers with autism had relatively good language outcome, as their language performance by 4 years of age was within 1 standard deviation of typical norms. We also measured the biology behind these two autism subtypes. First we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which is a non-invasive method to look at blood oxygenation response that changes according to a task. Blood oxygenation changes are an indirect measure of neural activity. We used fMRI during natural sleep at around 29 months of age while the toddlers were played language stimuli through headphones to elicit neural responses to speech. Second, we measured molecular aspects of biology, by taking blood samples, isolating leukocyte cells, and then quantifying gene expression for all protein coding genes in the genome, at around the same time as the fMRI scan.