3 Ways to Use Routines In Play With Your Infant or Toddler
Making use of everyday routines and objects in your environment to play with my babyIn this episode, Ayelet sits down with Lia Kurtin of the website “Speech & Language At Home.” Lia Kurtin is a pediatric speech-language pathologist. She has been working with kids from birth through high school for nearly 20 years. Lia is currently providing assessment, treatment and parent education in the home health setting. She also owns a private practice and runs the website Speech and Language at Home. Lia creates and sells speech therapy materials for families and educators on her website and through her store on Teachers Pay Teachers.Lia offers three great categories of materials families can consider when playing with an infant or toddler, which also tie into everyday routines: everyday objects, food items, and nature!Lia and Ayelet discuss the reasons why everyday routines are such great opportunities to connect with a young child, how parents might use them to support language development and create multi-sensory experiences, and what additional favorite resources exist!Quick access to links from this episode: Lia’s Monthly Activity Calendars Learn With Less DIY Edible Finger Paint Recipes on PinterestLearn With Less Family Enrichment SessionsConnect with us!Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / PinterestLia: Website / Facebook / Pinterest / Teachers Pay TeachersText transcript of this episodeWelcome to episode 42 of the Learn With Less podcast! Today, I’m speaking with Lia Kurtin of Speech and Language At Home. Lia is a pediatric speech and language pathologist on a mission to empower families and support professionals to keep it simple when it comes to supporting young children. Lia, welcome!Lia: Thank you so much for having me, I’m so excited to be here!Ayelet: We’re happy to have you, too. I asked you to come on the show today to talk a little bit about everyday routines and play with infants and toddlers. So, first, I would love just to hear a little bit about you, what brought you to this kind of work, and who you are.Lia: Sure! Well, I’m a speech-language pathologist and I had worked in the schools for, oh gosh, 14 years… so I worked with preschool to high school kids in that setting. Then, almost 5 years ago, I transitioned to home health, where I would see kids of all ages, many in the birth-3 population, but also some older kids, as well. So, I’ve pretty much worked with pediatrics, children of all ages, with just a variety of needs that they have. So, I’m in the home setting now, and when I transitioned, I really had to re-educate myself and see how I could best serve those kids. In that process, I’ve learned so much. I started bringing in a lot of materials, doing a lot of therapy that I was used to doing, traditionally, but as I’ve gotten more experience and learned more what the evidence is, it really just states that children learn best from their natural environment, so anything I brought in was not… it might help them, we might have a good session and learn a lot at that time, but I really tried to expand into more of an education role, helping families, training,