Can Childhood Ear Infections Impact Speech and Language?

The answer to this question is "yes".  Many children (I know mine have had several) have at least one middle-ear infection before the age of one and 10-20% of children have more frequent ear infections. Fluid can last on average up to one month per infection. Of huge importance is that persistent fluid is more common for children under 2 years of age than for older children.
Why is this of huge importance? This is a critical time for language learning and speech development. During a child's first three years is when the most amount of language learning is taking place - both learning to speak and understanding language. Children do this by interacting with people around them. If hearing is muffled during this time, it only makes sense that speech and language development may be delayed as a result.
Signs of a Possible Hearing Loss:

Children with otitis media will often have a mild to moderate TEMPORARY hearing loss. If you suspect your child may have trouble with her hearing, check for a difference in behavior and check for these signs:
* has difficulty paying attention
* not following directions well
* saying 'huh" often
* not responding when spoken to
* needing volume turned up on TV or radio

If you continue to suspect that your child may have a hearing loss, you'll want to first take her into the pediatrician for a hearing screening. If a hearing screening is failed then the next step would be to see an audiologist. An audiologist will be able to do a more in-depth hearing assessment.
Stacy Torrence M.S. CCC-SLP

Penguin

Hello everyone, and welcome back! This was a great week for the Penguins. We did finger painting, marble painting, free art, and have been working really hard on our gifts for our Grandparents or Special Friend’s Day! Do not forget to sign up to let us know how many people will be coming. It will be on February 10^th, at 10:00 am. We also read some really nice books like, The Puddle , by David McPhail, which was about a little boy who went out after it rained to sail his boat. This was a great one to read because of all the rain we just had, and it was definitely a class favorite. We reviewed the letter “Nn” by naming things in the room that started with “Nn,” and incorporating activities that started with that letter like “noodle art.” We also pretended to be different animals by getting down on the floor, crawling around, and making sounds. We worked on building a wall with the blocks, then finding different ways to knock it down. We did a lot of rolling into it, and falling on to the wall. We had a fun week. Remember to check cubbies and day notes daily.

Ms. Danielle

Sea Turtle

Nice to see you all! This week we have learned more about the letter “Nn.” We have also learned more about sharing! They had fun learning about “up and down” by raising their hands up and by touching the ground. We are also getting ready for Grandparents Day and we have started to pick out a couple of songs, make decorations, and the invitations! Grandparents and Special Friend’s Day is on Wednesday, February 10^th, at 10:00 am. We encourage all of you to come and have a wonderful time. Please see the signup sheet on the door. It has been a fun week, see you all on Monday!

Ms. Erin 

Starfish

What a great week the Starfish have had as we continue to dance our way through these dreary winter days! Our class could not be fuller of energy and passion. We sing, we dance and we laugh. A lot. In lieu of our African flags banner, we will be making a continent of Africa banner to celebrate the rich, diverse and impossible-to-finitely-capture history the United States shares with that and other parts of the world. We will make this banner on Thursday or Friday using our feet. It will be great--look for it in the hall. In other art, we painted with both bananas and ice! We are a creative class and will continue to generate art that exhibits movement with our "spinning-painting" on Friday. As we paint our feet and make slow-motion spinning footprints across mural paper, we will make something "moving" and beautiful to fill our walls! In science, we learned about magnets and will go back to them throughout the week so that we can really be amazed by how incorporated magnetism is in the world. We played with magnets to see how they attract their opposite poles and repel their like forces. We used the same magnets to pick up paper clips and further learn that metal objects held by a magnet do themselves become polarized and hold magnetic property. Science is great as, without the complicated explanations, it can appear to children as magical. This illusory component was not lost on the Starfish as we pulled iron (invisible black specks (wow!)) out of sand with our magnets. Beyond magnetism, we also learned about static in the gross motor by rubbing the balls against our hair and making it stand on end! In literature, we have successfully kick-started a Book of the Week program. The children appreciate the positive-reinforcement for their behavior in front of their peers at lunch, and I know parents find the program a good opportunity to bond. Please look for our wonderful art and check your day-notes to see the books we have been reading....and do not forget to sign up for Grandparents or Special Person Day on February 10th, 2010 (see flyer posted on the door outside of our classroom). Until next week, may the "forces" be with you--both magnetic and electrostatic. :) Cheers.

Ms. Victoria

Seals

Hello again from the Seals! We had a lot more fun this week and learned a lot of cool things. We reviewed the prepositions; on, between, under, behind, and in front. We were introduced to this by Ms. Stacy the speech teacher. The children learned a new finger play called Houses. The children practiced their shapes, colors and ABC’s. We also practiced counting by counting the number of times we could do jumping jacks. During gross motor time we played follow the leader. The children pretended they were; lions, tigers and bears, oh my! During this time we also danced and played with our cotton ball snow. Also when we had time we went on a bear hunt. The child loved going on bear hunt around the classroom. Outside when the weather was nice we played red light green light, did races and did free play.  In Art we painted with bananas. Yes I know, it sounds silly but the children loved it! They took unpeeled bananas and used them as paint brushes and drew with them on black paper. We used blue, green and pink paint.  The children loved how when they mixed the colors; blue and pink it turned into purple. We also painted with kool aid and ice cubes. The children also went into the night sky to catch a shooting star to place in our room. We decorated them with glitter and sequence. Since it is the winter season we made trees using our hands. Then glued cotton on it to make it look like it was covered in snow. The children have been working on their numbers so we made their very own counting book. Thanks for another great week Seals! Keep up the good work! Have a great weekend. See everyone next week!

Ms. Cheri

Dolphin

This week, the Dolphin Class is thinking about winter! We did mitten matching, ice painting, ice experiments, and talked about our favorite things to wear in winter! We had a fantastic time and we even got to do it all inside where it is warm! As you know Valentine’s Day is coming up and lots of things are happening around Bright Beginnings to celebrate! On February 10^th, we are having our Grandparents/Special Friend’s Day. We will be singing some songs, presenting some special gifts, and eating special food (grandparents only). Please make sure you sign up your child’s sweetheart up on the door so we can make a gift for them! The two days after that (February 11^th and 12^th) will be our Valentine’s parties. We will be making mailboxes using shoeboxes in order to deliver our Valentine’s to our friends. Please bring a shoebox! In art, we made our invitations for our Special Friends Day (they will be coming home soon!), painted with bananas, rubbed ice on kool-aid to make cool pictures, made shooting stars, and made a counting book for our classroom! In math, we discussed what our favorite thing is to wear in winter, did an experiment with ice and salt, talked about energy efficiency in the bedroom, graphed what we like to do outside, and matched mittens. In letter’s time, we read lots of books while talking about directionality and picture vs. print, did easel “N’s,” and wrote in journals. In children’s humanities, we did balancing skills, played games in our extra room, pinned the nose on our snowman, made snow sculptures, and had some free play! In social studies, we did a unit on Ghana. We touched on the idea of slavery because a lot of slaves came from Ghana, and talked about how they were not nice to the slaves and the slaves were not equal. We tied it to our unit about Martin Luther King Jr. We also found Ghana on the map, talked about the language, looked at the flag and saw pictures of their food and dress! We had some great fun and we are looking forward to next week!

Ms. Kimberly

Walrus

Hello! January is over and we are ready for February!  For this last week, the students were able to do some sequencing from largest to smallest with different objects around the room. We had a great discussion on how to ask a friend for something that they want (toys), and also ways that person who has the toy can respond back to their friend. We had an ice experiment and the students predicted whether the ice would melt faster in a cold bowl of water or a warm bowl of water. The predictions were about 50 50, but they enjoyed feeling and seeing the ice melt before their eyes. For Project Green we talked about earthquakes and what happens when there is an earthquake. Some of the students were aware of the earthquake in Haiti. We still worked with the letter “Nn,” and we wrote “nice,” and “neighbor” in our journals. Everyone loved working with the letter books that Ms. Stacey gave to us, which helps us a lot with our letter sounds and our vocab. The parachute was introduced this week, and it was a huge hit. It helped everyone with working together as a class. Everyone should have received some information about the Grandparents and Special Friend’s Day. We are really looking forward to it and hope everyone can make it! The students have already started memorizing their songs, and made great invitations. I hope everyone has a great week, and we are looking forward to the events to come!

Ms. Ryland