Info to share with parents

I get to go to some great professional development conferences. I went to one a couple of months ago (yes....I've been meaning to post this for a while!), and wanted to share some resources and reinforce some important points!

- Marty Burns is a speech pathologist that spoke about the neuroscience section of the conference. She has a great blog called Parent Smart…http://burnsparentsmart.blogspot.com/. If you go to her very first Welcome post, it will explain the purpose of her blog. But her philosophy is that talking and playing are the 2 most important things for children. She emphasized the importance of teaching parents to intervene and PLAY with children to help develop and possibly even help deter certain disabilities. She made the point that we live in a society where parents fall into wanting to please their children and make them happy (I can definitely testify to being guilty of this at times!). So in a society where “child directed” is a really popular term (and one that I personally think does have its place), the parent needs to learn to direct many of the activities.

She also discusses the importance of "brain foods" and what that is on her blog.

- The importance of reading!!! Fluent readers are usually fluent speakers. It’s proven that people with higher IQs are readers. Reading and language development are closely intertwined. Language is the bases for phonological awareness and literacy.

- In regards to diet, nutritian, research, vaccines, etc. and making decisions, make sure you access peer reviewed articles and information. · Kovacks – Journal of Science was her highest recommendation. It's one of the highest levels of review before an article can become published.