Using music for language and speech development with Wee Talkers

I'm really excited to feature some of my favorite people that I follow on Instagram on the Music For Kiddos Podcast and on this blog post. I had the opportunity to chat with Speech Language Pathologists Katie and Carly from Wee Talkers! You can check them out on Instagram @WeeTalkers and on their website at www.weetalkers.com.

If you want to learn more about how they utilize music in their work to address speech and language development goals, keep reading!

An interview with SLPs Katie and Carly of Wee Talkers

Katie and Carly are speech language pathologists who’s work is primarily focused on babies and toddlers. And they use a lot of music in their work. I’ve learned a ton from just following their page and following along with the education and educational tools they share.

What I really like about them the most is that they are kids-centered. They are child-led and they have this unconditional regard for kids and love to do things through play. So, there's a lot of commonalities in my values and my cares as a music therapist in what they do in their work.

As a music therapist, is just so incredibly wonderful and valuable that I get to connect with these speech language pathologists because they have such a wealth of information, experience, knowledge and they are truly brilliant in the way that they work with kids.

Q & A with Katie and Carly

*This is a summarized transcript of my interview with Katie and Carly of Wee Talkers. For the full interview, head over to episode 64 of the Music For Kiddos podcast. Listen to this episode here.

1. Question: Can you tell me a little bit about how you're using music in your work today?

Answer: We use it quite a bit. Carly referenced earlier that working with the kids that she works with has kind of drawn out that part of her.

And I think we know like head knowledge so much about the benefits of music for language development, but we've also just really experienced it with our clients. We've just seen the connection improve when we use music. We've seen the buy-in just be a lot better and they're really pleasantly surprised when you use music. And so for us, I think we've gained a tool when we use music in our therapy sessions. We also just really love teaching families these little songs and rhymes because we know that it gives them the same connection with their kid and gives all the benefits of language development.

So it's pretty powerful in our work.

Another thing that we really love about music and using it with our clients is that it really slows language down. A lot of the kids we work with aren't talking yet, or aren't talking very much, and it really just makes those words stand out. It makes it come to life. It really grabs their attention.

2. Question: I'm so glad that you said that because I think sometimes (I know that I have fallen into this trap sometimes), sometimes music therapists and music educators maybe shy away from repetition because it feels too repetitive when your medium is music and you're using the song for example, week after week after week. I think music therapists can sometimes feel a little self-conscious, like they're not preparing new materials and things like that.

Do you have feelings on that? Like how you said that {music can} slow it down. Do you have thoughts or techniques that you like when it comes to slowing things down and using repetition? What have you noticed with kids?

Answer: I think with repetition, you're giving them some predictability. They really get to learn that song, they get to anticipate what's coming next. And when they are really familiar and comfortable with something, then you can push them a little bit more and see if you can get some skills demonstrated that maybe you haven't seen before.

So if we're going to just go with the “Wheels On The Bus” for now, if they knew that song really well, and you started to sing “the horn on the bus goes…”, and you would pause, the hope would be that they're so familiar with that song that they either try a “beep beep beep” or they use their hand as a gesture to indicate “beep beep beep”. But, they wouldn't be able to do that and they won't be able to participate in that way if they weren't really familiar with that song. So repetition is actually necessary for the kids we work with.

3. Question: What does that look like week to week with the songs that you choose or the moves, etc.?

Answer: I think we would just look at the individual child and how it's going. If there's a song that they love and the family loves, we will sing it again and again. I feel like we lean into repetition really hard. And then, like Katie said, maybe pull back a bit of our supports because what we're trying to do in a session maybe encourages the child to use a gesture they never have, or a make a sound they never have before; participate in a way that's a little bit more advanced from where they were the session before.

So ,we will repeat songs often and then some kids just can't get enough so we're mixing in new ones. We make up songs all the time. We love giving directions and maybe sing it to a tune of something just to make it a bit more engaging and supportive for the child to follow through with that, for example. Also, we really love that it can give us an indicator of what they might enjoy. “What about that song are they enjoying?” What skills are they feeling confident in? That can kind of inform the next song that we show them or model.

If they're really into animals, you taught them a song about animals and they've exhausted that one, maybe the next song would also be about animals, but we’ll incorporate different gestures or different imitation skills. So we use their interests to inform next steps and also their goals.

4. Question: Let's talk a little bit about books because I notice you use a lot of books, at least in what you share on social media. What are some of the ways that you utilize books and also, music as part of books.

Answer: We use books all the time in our therapy sessions. And then also, in our parent education and how we teach them to interact with their babies and toddlers with books. I think that I use music because we don't read the words on the page quite often with toddlers. A lot of times I will use either a song or parts of a song, or just kind of some melodic intonation when I'm reading and pointing things out. Maybe if there's a duck holding an umbrella, I might say like “dribble, dribble, drip drop”. And that's not in the book, but I'm tapping on the page {while I say it}.

My 13 month old right now, I'm thinking of this example because I read this {book} last night, he will tap the page and say “dribble, dribble, drip drop”… and so it's just giving more opportunities for participation, I think, when you use more “sing song-y” or sounds in your book reading.

We feel like books just open a whole new world for kids and what they're able to show us that they know and to increase participation in book reading.

Wanna hear the rest of our interview with Wee Talkers?

Listen to this episode of the Music For Kiddos Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your favorite shows!

Thank you to Katie and Carly for this awesome interview!

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