Nobody Told Me (or My Mother) That! - Everything from Bottles and Breathing to Healthy Speech Development is full of useful, field tested and practical advice. This guide provides answers to questions parents have on their child's feeding, speech, and oral-motor development, from birth to 8 years old. Includes many checklists, lots of nice pictures, and a few detailed diagrams. Checklists include activities with directions and a space to enter the date when you have completed the activity. The development of the mouth and oral motor activities is listed in sequential order, with a space for parents to add in a date when they first observe the skill in their child. Many developmental checklists are included and provide the approximate age for the skill to be displayed and a space for parents to enter the date that they observe the skill in their child.
Topics:
There is so much information in this 400+ page book. Topics include the following:
An entire chapter is devoted to feeding your baby, nutrition, and hydration.
A section is devoted to allergies, the professional to see, and possible treatment options. Baer provides a variety of possible allergy symptoms, along with the most common food allergies.
The development of the hand-mouth coordination is explored, as well as a baby's exploration of toys through her mouth.
Bahr explains how to conduct face, jaw, and mouth massage to a developing child's mouth.
Another chapter presents information on feeding your baby as he moves to higher-level feeding activities such as using a cup, eating new foods, and using a spoon.
Tips for speech development are presented from as young as one month with speech sound development through eight years of age with speech and communication development.
There is a very informative chapter explaining how to use this information with a child with special needs, such as Down Syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, hearing loss, and other developmental delays. Bahr takes each of these special needs and presents the possible problems and some treatment options.
At the end of this book there are two appendices full of resources. Fifteen pages contain lists of articles, books, materials, DVDs, products, and websites. This comprehensive guide is appropriate for a parent desiring information on the development of oral-motor skills and speech in their baby.
