A toddler says, “Quiero my cup,” or answers an English question with a Spanish word, and a parent may wonder whether two languages are getting tangled together. But code switching in bilingual toddlers is not automatically a sign of confusion; it is a common way bilingual speakers use the language Continue Reading
Celina Vasquez
Easy Turn-Taking Games That Help Young Children Communicate
Turn taking is easy to mistake for a manners lesson: wait, share, let someone else go. But the most useful turn taking games for kids do something more fundamental. They make the rhythm of communication visible—one person acts, the other notices, responds, and leaves space for the next turn. That Continue Reading
How to Encourage Longer Conversations With a Preschooler
A preschooler who answers “good,” “nothing,” or “I don’t know” is not necessarily unwilling to talk. Building preschool conversation skills often depends less on finding the perfect question and more on creating an exchange that gives the child something meaningful to respond to. That distinction matters because adults can easily Continue Reading
Talking More Isn’t the Whole Story: What Really Builds a Rich Language Environment at Home
The first signs of language do not always sound like language. Long before a baby can say a recognizable word, baby gestures before talking may include reaching, raising both arms to be picked up, showing an object, waving, pointing, or pairing movement with a sound. A rich language environment is Continue Reading
When Adult Screen Time Includes Gambling: What Children Notice About Phone Habits
A parent checks a sports score during dinner, answers a work message during play, scrolls social media at the park, or opens an adult gambling app during family downtime. Young children may not understand what is on the screen, but parent phone habits around children can still change what they Continue Reading
A Toddler Just Received a New Gene Therapy for Hearing Loss—What Families Should Understand
A 16-month-old Alabama toddler recently became the first patient at Boston Children’s Hospital to receive a newly approved gene therapy for hereditary hearing loss outside the clinical trial that helped bring it to market. The milestone makes OTOF hearing loss gene therapy sound like a dramatic new option for families, Continue Reading
How many Connecticut parents read to their young children every day — and why it matters
A Connecticut survey released in July 2026 found that seven in 10 participating caregivers of children under 6 said they read with their children every day. Yet the more useful lesson about reading aloud with children is not that every family needs a perfect nightly streak. Time, energy, access to Continue Reading
Asthma Can Affect Breath Support for Speech—But Breathing Difficulty Is Not a Speech Diagnosis
Speaking depends partly on airflow, so it makes sense that parents may notice differences in a child’s voice or phrase length when breathing is difficult. But the relationship between asthma and speech development needs careful boundaries: respiratory symptoms can affect the mechanics of speaking without automatically causing a speech-sound or Continue Reading
Audiobooks May Help Change How Hearing Is Tested in Young Children
A hearing test can tell whether a child detects a sound, but families often want to know something more practical: what happens when that sound becomes speech in a noisy classroom, car, or playground? New work involving audiobooks is pushing pediatric hearing assessment toward that harder question by studying how Continue Reading
A Child Who Talks at Home but Not at School Needs Less Pressure, Not More Questions
A child can tell elaborate stories at the dinner table and become unable to answer a familiar question once the classroom door closes. That contrast can confuse adults, but selective mutism communication is shaped by anxiety and setting; being able to speak comfortably at home does not mean a child Continue Reading