[Podcourse] From Wait and See to Watch and Support: An SLP’s Role in Early Communication Monitoring

In this podcourse episode, we welcome back Pediatric SLP Rachel May, founder and CEO of New Day Child Coaching, to discuss reframing SLP involvement in infancy (0–12 months) from a “wait and see” approach to proactive “watch and support” partnering with families. Rachel shares concerns about fragmented caregiver-child interaction, screen-related distractions, and late referrals, and proposes a Pathwise framework that moves beyond a binary “typical vs delayed” model to include “different,” with three support levels: watch/support, learn to support (coaching), and advocate for support (prescriptive therapy). They review early communication “breaks” to monitor in 6–9 months, including canonical babbling, joint attention/gaze following, and social engagement in interactive games like peekaboo, noting why these markers matter for later language and developmental outcomes. Rachel also outlines family-partnering strategies such as embedded coaching in daily routines and video-aided reflection to empower parents as primary observers and advocates.