Teaching a baby how to eat and enjoy food is a fun and exciting milestone for many parents. It is essential for us as parents to be patient, to allow our baby to take the lead, and to see our baby's food as much more than a way to satisfy hunger. Food and the act of feeding can and should be a pleasurable learning tool for parents to share with their child.

We begin introducing solids by spoon feeding cereals and then veggies and fruits. A baby needs time to get used to how these new textures feel inside of her mouth as well as how to manage and swallow them. She may make a face and push the food out of her mouth with her tongue. As she becomes more comfortable with management of her smooth food, she will then probably begin to reach for the spoon to practice her ability to reach and grasp. This will allow her to explore what is going into her mouth with her hands. It is around this time as well that your baby may experiment with blowing raspberries during spoon feeds to further explore her abilities. Mom and Dad may want to start donning a raincoat to avoid wearing the baby's lunch!

As your baby gets older and her diet expands it is very important to give your baby an opportunity for "messy play" and exploration of a variety of tastes and textures with her hands and mouth. Mealtime for a baby is much more than meeting caloric needs.

CLICK HERE to continue reading the ways to encourage your baby to engage in tactile exploration and messy play during mealtime.

The recent Oscar winning film The King's Speech starring actor Colin Firth as King George VI helped to shed a positive light on those who stutter and is the first film that focused on speech therapy as a means of treating this communication disorder which affects approximately 1% of the population. The film provided new insight to the average person who previously had no knowledge of stuttering or perhaps even held the common misconception that people who stutter are not intelligent. Hopefully those who bullied classmates who stuttered are ashamed of themselves and learned a new lesson. Besides King George VI there have been many famous people who stuttered and went on to lead successful lives such as Winston Churchill, Carly Simon and James Earl Jones to name a few.

We recently received a question from a concerned parent via our Ask A Therapist forum inquiring about her three year old daughter who recently began to stutter. This parent shared her fear that because her husband stutters and was bullied as a child, she was very worried that her daughter may have inherited this communication disorder and wanted to seek help immediately.

We shared with her a fantastic website run by The Stuttering Foundation, which has been in operation since 1947. The Stuttering Foundation provides the following facts about stuttering on their page:

• Stuttering is a communication disorder in which the flow of speech is broken by repetitions (li-li-like this), prolongations (lllllike this), or abnormal stoppages (no sound) of sounds and syllables. There may also be unusual facial and body movements associated with the effort to speak. Stuttering is also referred to as stammering.


• There are four factors most likely to contribute to the development of stuttering: genetics (approximately 60% of those who stutter have a family member who does also); child development (children with other speech and language problems or developmental delays are more likely to stutter); neurophysiology (recent neurological research has shown that people who stutter process speech and language slightly differently than those who do not stutter); and family dynamics (high expectations and fast-paced lifestyles can contribute to stuttering).      

• Stuttering affects four times as many males as females.

• Approximately 5% of all children go through a period of stuttering that lasts six months or more. Three-quarters of those will recover by late childhood, leaving about 1% with a long-term problem. There are a variety of successful approaches for treating both children and adults. The best prevention tool is early intervention. In the past, many children did not get help until well into school age, now children can get help before they reach preschool.

If you are concerned about your child stuttering ,The Stuttering Foundation has developed this excellent resource to answer your questions.  If your child is under age 5 and you are concerned you should contact your local early intervention provider (either at the birth-3 level or 3-5 preschool level). You can also contact a certified speech and language pathologist in your area by using the ASHA website's Find a Professional link.