What Parents Can Do

When speech, language, hearing, or developmental problems do exist, early intervention can provide the help a child needs. And when you have a better understanding of why your child isn't talking, you can learn ways to encourage speech development.

Here are a few general tips to use at home:

· Spend a lot of time communicating with your child, even during infancy — talk, sing, and encourage imitation of sounds and gestures.

· Read to your child, starting as early as 6 months. You don't have to finish a whole book, but look for age-appropriate books or picture books that encourage kids to look while you name the pictures. Try starting with a classic book (such as Pat the Bunny) in which the child imitates the patting motion, or books with textures that kids can touch. Later, let your child point to recognizable pictures and try to name them. Then move on to nursery rhymes, which have rhythmic appeal. Progress to predictable books (such as Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear) that let kids anticipate what happens. Your little one may even start to memorize favorite stories.

· Use everyday situations to reinforce your child's speech and language. In other words, talk your way through the day. For example, name foods at the grocery store, explain what you're doing as you cook a meal or clean a room, point out objects around the house, and as you drive, point out sounds you hear. Ask questions and acknowledge your child's responses (even when they're hard to understand

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Articulatory problems.

The most commonly problems will involve difficulties of articulation. The first step is to teach the child to hear differences. For instance, if he is saying <top> instead <stop> he is omitting the <s>, but it is not enough to tell him this. It is important for him to see that there is a difference between these two words and that one is incorrect and the other is correct. Next he must see where the difference is located in the word. The second step is to teach him how to make a sound. The simplest way to teach a child to make the sound is to have him imitate the teacher. The third stage is to teach him how to use this sound. When he is able to produce the sound with careful stimulation he will need a period of practice using words in isolation and in phrases. These words should be chosen from his vocabulary and be placed into context as frequently as possible. It is true that some children have learnt to improve speech by reading word lists that have been prepared by the teacher.

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A Message for Parents of School-Age Children Who Stutter

As children who stutter grow older, and as they learn to deal with their stuttering, they may face a number of new challenges. School-age children are old enough to realize that they did not “grow out of” their early stuttering. With this realization comes a growing awareness of the fact that stuttering may not simply “go away,” as the child may have hoped when he was younger. As the child begins to recognize that stuttering is something that may stay with him throughout his life, he may experience increased frustration and concern about his speech. For this reason, school-age children in particular need the full support of their parents and clinicians, as well as the other people in their environment, to help them understand what they are experiencing.

It is important for children to understand that they will not always stutter in the same way as they do now, and that their stuttering will not always be severe. Indeed, all children who stutter can learn to improve their speech fluency and enhance their ability to communicate effectively, and it is critical that children who stutter maintain a sense of hope and optimism as they learn to effectively cope with stuttering in their lives.

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Disabled people suffer a lot; they feel exempted from our society by the treatment they receive from others. Most of the people in Lebanon will stay away from disabled humans. But aren’t they the same as normal one’s? Don’t they have a good hearth? They want the same things that normal people do, they eat the same food. Everything is the same, but they have a part of their body that’s malfunctioning. The technology and the science are developed as much that it has made disabled people lives easier. In Lebanon, there are rules for disabled people, but unfortunately these rules aren’t always followed. For example not in every public toilet has a special place for them, not every parking has place left for wheel chairs. But they feel more pain in their hearth when they are pushed away from society. This will hurt them even more than any rules. Even if they can’t walk it doesn’t mean that they can’t be any help. They want to work like a normal employee; they want to be treated like a person, not like they don’t exist or, just because God wanted them to be like this, don’t have a life. Here we have some private sector for disabled people but it’s not enough. There has to be more activities for them, more learning schools. They have to be encouraged to participate to any events, because in this way they will be recovered faster and in some way they will be normal.

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