Dogs Helping Out In Speech Therapy

Posted on April 15, 2012 by sherry

Some days I am a tasty treat of smells when I come home to my golden retriever, Duke. He sniffs me and my bag with delight because I have seen so many dogs in a day!
Thankfully all of them are friendly and have gotten quite used to me but one of my favorites is Roscoe. He jumps with delight when I come to the door (often requiring his owner to put him in his crate for a while) but usually he settles down near my feet as I work with his little owner.

Last week I brought the new lego Duplo “Creative Cakes” to play with a 5 year-old girl working on /s/. She made many wonderful treats, chocolates, birthday cakes with candles and swirly frosted cupcakes. After each creation she was so proud that she ran off to find Roscoe and show him her treats. I had to take a picture because Roscoe looked just as happy with the plastic bakery items as she was! He was the best reinforcement she could have after she worked on her sound and cupcakes.

Creative Cupcakes was provided for review by lego.

 

Posted in 3-6 year-olds, Strategies to Encourange Language Development | Leave a comment

Teach Inference, Comparisons and Description with “the little pea”

Posted on April 9, 2012 by sherry

The simplicity of the cover with the little green pea proudly holding his peacock feather gives a hint of this heart-warming story of the little pea’s adventure to be unique. Finding himself on a plant full of similar peas, the main character jumps out of his pod and takes off to forge his identity. As he approaches different animals, he declares his admiration, “I want to be like a peacock. With a tail as beautiful as a bouquet!” But, how will he get that beautiful tail? or the striped fur of the tiger or the magnificent trunk of the elephant? Each encounter provides the opportunity for prediction. Who would have guessed that the little pea would paint stripes on his body or attach a reed of grass to his nose to replicate the animals he admired? Conversation about comparisons, how the pea changed  and expanding to other animals and their traits all contribute to the language learning with “The Little Pea.” After being teased and laughed at by the other peas, our little pea remembered he was a seed and buried himself. As the seasons passed, a new vine poked through the soil to reveal a plant full of  peas, some with stripes, varied long noses and varied colors. Our little pea had produced the most unique peas of all. Finish up with an inferential question, “Why are they all different?” It is amazing to see kids link the traits back to the story.

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The SLP Toolbelt, I Got an iPad…Now What?

Posted on April 4, 2012 by sherry

I know you will enjoy this guest post by Katie Kelley, SLP at  peachyspeech.com. Katie’s depth of knowledge on speech therapy apps contributes to her valuable recommendations.

I work in a school district where very few SLPs have access to iPads in their everyday therapy.  We’re trying to change that through grant writing education, setting aside time as Speech-Language Pathologists to collaborate and brainstorm about how to use the iPad in therapy and what apps to purchase, and through the collection and sharing of data supporting positive student outcomes when using the iPad.

Frequent questions that arise while meeting with SLPs new to using devices in therapy is, “THERE ARE SO MANY APPS OUT THERE..WHICH ONES DO I BUY?”  So I’ve compiled a speech therapy tool belt for elementary level SLPs based on a starting budget of $100 (I did my very best to stay within that budget but found it too hard to leave a couple out).  These days, all Speech-Language Pathologists have students with autism on their caseloads.  From my own experience, the majority of students can be targeted using apps from the specific categories of SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AUTISM.  My tool belt includes at least 1 app from each category.  All apps on the list I have used extensively and have compared against other similar apps…so what you’re getting is the result of a lot of time and money spent.

Speech apps:

Articulation Station Pro ($49.99) (Articulation Station Pro is the first and only articulation application offering practice at the WORD, SENTENCE and STORY levels!  The app includes 22 target sounds.)

Language apps:

Toontastic ($9.99) (This app can be used for increasing storytelling/retelling skills, increasing use of descriptive language and targeted vocabulary, working on verb tense and word order, pronouns, synonyms, and much more…)

Story Builder ($7.99) (Targets picture description, word order, sentence formation, vocabulary, making predications, cause/effect, pronouns, verb tense, sequencing)

Language Builder ($7.99) (Targets picture description, sentence formation, word order, verb tense, vocabulary, pronouns.)

Preposition Builder ($9.99) (Targets correct use of prepositions and how preposition use changes a sentence.)

Cookie Doodle ($.99) (Targets sequencing, following directions, basic vocabulary and great for spicing up sessions around the holidays)

Word SLapPs ($4.99) (This is great for students with significant deficits in vocabulary.  It allows you to upload your own images by category)

Doodle Buddy (Free) (Target anything you want while students doodle with their finger.  I use these apps to talk about categories, part/whole relationships, etc.)

Autism apps:

Stories2Learn ($13.99) (Create custom social stories, using your own photos, text, and voice-over)

Model Me Kids: Going Places (Free) (Helping learn to navigate challenging community locations through slide shows of children modeling appropriate behavior.  May only be appropriate for a couple students but at this price, add it!)

Conversation Builder ($9.99) (Pragmatics: Discriminate between subtle differences which can negatively or positively impact a conversation.  Practice making appropriate comments and asking appropriate questions with real life pictures.)

Total: $115.91 (almost made budget :-) )

There are so many other wonderful apps, but I think this is a solid place to start.  I hope you find this helpful if you’re planning on getting an iPad for therapy or even planning to write a grant for an iPad.

Posted in 10 and up, 6-8 year-olds, 8 years and up, Apps, Articulation, Elementary School Age, Language, Speech and Language Delay, Strategies to Encourange Language Development | Leave a comment

Draw And Tell App For Speech Therapy

Posted on March 28, 2012 by sherry

“Draw & Tell” by Duck Duck Moose is a wonderful tool for speech therapy. First you select your background paper from colors, stripes, polka dots, checkers and more. Tap the paint brush to choose your medium–stickers, dots, paint, colored pencil or crayon–and start to create your story. Kids liked to start with the characters along the bottom because they could size them and move them around. They added background scenery and details like hats, mustaches, cupcakes and buttons to their images as their story grew. I’ve used this app several times with kids 7 and up who were working on articulation goals. I used carrier phrases today for /th/ easily as the child said, “This goes here, and that goes there.”

Yesterday, an 8 year-old girl asked for “Draw & Tell” again as she formulated a story around a party. Note the giant ant lifting weights with the cupcake and the bird’s hand drawn legs. The table had to be lengthened to accommodate all the goodies–cherries, tea, hamburger and apple. This little girl was working on final /s/ so she practiced as she said, “This __ goes here.”

There is no limit to what you can do with this app. Younger kids can use it for reinforcing language structures as you build your story. Do a little more drawing to make a road with the yellow line down the middle as the tow truck picks up a disabled vehicle on the side. Birds fly in the sky and alligators hang out in the pond as kids move the figures around and tell you why.

Every speech therapist will love the record feature so kids can listen to themselves whether they are practicing a sound or story telling.

Posted in 3-6 year-olds, 6-8 year-olds, 8 years and up, Apps, Language, Strategies to Encourange Language Development | Leave a comment

BBQ Blitz for Speech Therapy

Posted on March 27, 2012 by sherry

One of the hoppin’ booths at this year’s Toy Fair in New York City was Educational Insights. It wasn’t just that they were stuffing your bags with free games, but that the games were fantastic! One of their new games, “BBQ Blitz,” lived up to its name at “a patty-matching burger-building game. The box itself is so much fun as it’s shaped like a rounded backyard grill, filled with 16 burger patties (4 ketchup, 4 pickles, 4 cheese and 4 mustard). Everyone grabs their spatulas and a plate with four of a kind patties to cover with the real thing and a bun. It is a race to see who can fill their plates the fastest.

Kids love this crazed version but we know in speech therapy we love to transform a game to our purposes–so every kid can work on his goals. My little three-year-old and I modified the rules and took turns, turning over a patty to see if it matched our plates. We were working on questions, “Where is the ketchup?” negatives, “Oh no, that’s not the pickles,” and verbs, “Here is the mustard.” It could easily be used as a reinforcing game for students working on articulation goals, saying a word or phrase before turns or using a carrier phrase with their target sound such as “I found,” or “I got” or “Take__.”

Check out the Educational Insights website for some really fun, educational games.

The above is solely the opinion of the author. BBQ Blitz was provided for review byEducational Insights.

Posted in 3-6 year-olds, Games, Preschool, Strategies to Encourange Language Development | Leave a comment

PAL Award Winners from Thinkfun For Speech Therapy

Posted on March 22, 2012 by sherry

As I was leaving to go do speech therapy the other day, I glanced down at my bag and had a quick thought that the boxes looked the same. Yes, indeed, I was off to play with kids with all games from Thinkfun!

Four new games from Thinkfun have just received the PAL Award and I wanted to share them with you. Two word games, a silly make-up-your-own-sounds-game (as I just made up a word!) and a first toddler game can all be adapted to speech therapy whether using them as a reinforcer for articulation therapy or modeling language targets as you play. Let me know how you adapt these games with your kids to advance their goals. I would love to hear.

Here are my reviews”

Leave it to Thinkfun to create a way to combine a puzzle and word-search for kids as young a 6 years old, embedding language and reading skills along the way.  Just fit the colorful Tetris-style puzzle pieces over the letters on a grid to spell words forwards or  backwards. The 40 single-player challenges progress in difficulty as words become more complex as well as the clues. “Find” clues start with a list of the exact words you are searching for and progress to pictures of the words, and harder “hints” that you are looking for words in a category such as candy, related to a cactus (plant, spine, dry, or ouch) or go with step (mom, foot, stool and two). Although “Pathwords Jr” is designed for one player, I found that doing the task together provides a lot of conversation as kids race to find the words. With all the pieces housed in a clever slide-open container, this game is perfect for travel or to throw in a therapist’s bag to liven up language lessons.

Word game lovers take note–this one you can slip into your pocket. Simple but challenging, “Mini Mouth” is 26 letter tiles in a little game-go bag. Spread out the letters face down and then turn over 2-5 tiles and race to see who can use those letters in a word. All letters have to be used but you can also employ letters that haven’t been flipped. E, Q, T could combine for “quiet,” “quite” or “quest.” With all the possibilities, players search their vocabulary to come up with an answer. Kids can play with adults as you adjust the number of letter tiles flipped over, making this a fun family game.

“Yackety Smack!” is just that–a game of silly noises and fast paced smacking to beat your opponents. Kids couldn’t wait to record their own noises in the Sound Smacker to match two of  the four corresponding playing cards of a singer, karate kid, slime or a wild card of your choice.  Shyness is not allowed as kids tried out their best vibrato, ninja cry, squish or sound effect. Something about making noises frees kids of their inhibitions and I must say boys seem to have a bigger repertoire! Once play starts, each player in turn flips over the top  card on their pile until both the cards that correspond to the recorded sounds show at the same time. Think and move fast to be the first one to smack the Sound Smacker and you win that round. Language learning comes in when kids associate sounds with images, call on their visual and auditory memory, and discuss their way through this fun, wacky game.

Toddlers can now join family game night with their own selection, “Roll & Play” by Thinkfun. This first game designed for toddlers makes learning fun. Simply roll the stuffed plush cube, identify the color on top and match it to one of five stacks of category cards–emotions, body parts, animal sounds, counting, colors and actions. Kids and parents are soon roaring like a lion, blowing a kiss, searching for something blue, or touching their belly button. Cute cartoons illustrate the actions, as Mom or Dad read the instructions. Listening, moving and language learning abound as kids take turns, roll (and sometimes throw!) the block and follow directions. An added benefit of this toddler game is that it gives parents a fun activity with their child. So many parents of toddlers ask me for toy suggestions and activities to do with their kids. They’re not babies anymore, but can’t yet verbalize and play independently like preschoolers, so parents are often at a loss for something to play with their toddlers. Moms loved that this game had it’s own packaging–just slip the category cards into a Velcro pocket on one side of the cube and you can take it anywhere!

The above games were provided for review by Thinkfun.

Posted in 3-6 year-olds, 6-8 year-olds, 8 years and up, Articulation, Games, Language, Strategies to Encourange Language Development, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

anamalz Characters Great for Speech Language Therapy

Posted on March 19, 2012 by sherry

As speech therapists, we appreciate toys with several props along a theme. Kids start thinking within a category and have several characters to interact in the jungle, on the farm, or in prehistoric times. Anamalz provides darling animal characters with movable arms, legs an necks that are gathered in sets. I used the Jungle Box Set with kids from 3-9, as they took their little pals on adventures, working on verbs, vocabulary, and expanding sentences.  There is something about the simple design with just enough detail to suggest the animal but enough left up to the child to create open-ended play.

Here is my review:

Anamalz just multiplied the play factor by combining themed animals and props in their new box sets. Gathering animals and trees from the jungle, the wild, the farm and prehistoric times, they give kids the related characters to interact and start a story. My friends in the Jungle Box Set, the tiger, rhino and gorilla, were quickly  picked up and manipulated to “run fast,” dip into the water for a drink, and climb a tree. The wild giraffe, elephant and zebra come with an orange tree for a nibble as the giraffe is just the right height. Kids easily grip the smooth bodies and shape the movable legs, arms and necks to match their intended actions. Take the play to a new venue as you play online, learning about your animals, how to help them in their environment, or my favorite which is choreographing “wild dancing,” combining animal dance moves to animate. Great toys grow with a child and encourage creativity at different ages. Anamalz creatures do just that. A 3 and 6 year-old befriended the jungle pals, bringing them into their play world, while a 9 year-old girl, loved the little creatures as collectibles to add to her special table where she reported that her “frog key chain was the mayor.” Let’s hope our jungle friends behave in that pretend world!

Ages 3 and up

The above in solely the opinion of the author. The Jungle Box Set was provided for review by anamalz.

Posted in 3-6 year-olds, 6-8 year-olds, 8 years and up, Language, play, Preschool, Strategies to Encourange Language Development | Leave a comment

The Magic School Bus Attracted to Magnificent Magnets Wins PAL Award

Posted on March 18, 2012 by sherry

I love the scientific method and its dependence on strong language skills. What can be more fun than to follow The Magic School Bus’ Ms. Frizzle through 8 experiments learning about magnets? This Young Scientists Kit is the newest in a series of themed options including the study of dinosaurs, volcanoes or electricity. As speech therapists and educators we know that language undergirds all learning and a new trend in education is requiring students to explain in a journal how they figured out a math problem or write out the steps that led to conclusions in a science project. I was in a kindergarten class the other day and the teacher followed a child’s reply with, “Why do you say that?” and “What makes you say that?” to explain their thinking.

Homemade Magnetic Slime

Kids loved this exciting kit when I brought it to therapy with an autistic child and his typical peer. They started out sticking the magnets on everything possible around the room and loved discovering how to make a race car move without touching it and stirring up some magnetic slime.  They felt like little scientists filling in their results in the booklet and arriving at conclusions. This kit was a nice diversion from my usual therapy materials and the kids kept wanting more.

Here is my review:

Gather your young scientists and hop on the Magic School Bus as wacky Ms. Frizzle leads you through learning with “Attracted to Magnificent Magnets.” This latest Young Scientists Club kit has the instructions and materials (other than a few household items) to invite your child into the world of magnets. With 8 experiments, the kit takes kids from going on a magnetic scavenger hunt to making a race car game, compass or magnetic slime. Each page of the instruction booklet is laid out in clever graphics, introducing a new experiment, providing the Question, Materials and Methods with space for the child to fill in the Hypothesis, Results and Conclusions. Besides learning the science of magnets, a child engages in a wonderful language learning experience. Predict what will happen, re-call the event listing the results, and draw conclusions based on your observations. Predicting, re-telling events in sequence and drawing conclusions are all critical thinking skills required of a good thinker and writer. Students are increasingly being required to explain their answers in school, whether in math or science, so they need a strong command of language. The Magic School Bus Young Scientists Club kits prepare children for learning and sharing their knowledge through exciting adventures.

Ages 5 and up

The above review is solely the opinion of the author. “The Magic School Bus Attracted to Magnificent Magnets” was provided for review by The Young Scientists Club.

Posted in 6-8 year-olds, 8 years and up, Language, Strategies to Encourange Language Development | Leave a comment

“Ticked Off” by R and R Games Wins PAL Award

Posted on March 15, 2012 by sherry

As speech therapists we are a flexible group by trade. We have to modify materials for different kids’ ages and goals. “Ticked Off” by R and R Games is a terrific language learning game for older kids but can be modified for younger ones too. I simply picked out the easier category cards or you could add your own according to what you are working on. Kids loved bidding on or guessing how many items in a category they could list and learning the hard way if they didn’t make their bid! Here is my review:

The beauty of Ticked Off” is that at its core, it’s a great language learning game as players seek to outdo each other with their knowledge of items in a category from movies starring Clint Eastwood, kitchen utensils, or composers to things you normally have in your pockets. Strategy and craziness enters the picture as players draw a category card and bid on how many items they think they can name, trying to have the top bid. Reveal the mystery category and players have a second theme to chose from as they start the timer and record their items. Scoring depends on unique answers and making your bid so thoughtful planning helps. With 168 category cards, this game has lots of variety in topics and vocabulary learning. Great fun for older kids and adults, Ticked Off can also be played with kids younger than 12 by simplifying the scoring and using some easier categories like fruits, board games, and things you wear on your feet.

Ages 12 years and up

The above is solely the opinion of the author. “Ticked Off” was provided for review by R and R Games.

Posted in 12 years and up, Games, Language, Strategies to Encourange Language Development | Leave a comment

“Blind Spell” Teaches in Speech Therapy

Posted on March 15, 2012 by sherry

Do you want a new game for speech therapy that’s literally “out of sight?” “Blind Spell” is a fun way to reinforce spelling, teach vocabulary, and use all your fingers to spell. We had a lot of laughs and talk about strategy as kids quickly learned how to trick each other and make the game more challenging. Turn a Z on its side and try to distinguish it from an N! Here is my review:

Kids loved to take up the challenge to spell a 3 letter-word without seeing it. One player selects a word from the list and writes it on a dry erase board for the speller to clearly see before putting on those cool shades, blocking his view. The player who chose the word, gathers the cardboard letters for the word but adds 1-5 extras, depending on the level and complexity of play. Placing the letters in the speller’s hand, he starts the 30 minute timer to see if his friend can correctly spell the word.  It didn’t take kids long to figure out that choosing words with similar shaped letters (MAN, NOW) as well as adding letters similar to those in the target word added to the difficulty of the task. “Blind Spell” is a whole lot more fun than a spelling test, and teaches kids through multi-sensory tasks as they see, remember and feel the word. Who knew spelling could be so much fun out of sight?

Ages: 7 and up

The above opinions are solely those of the author. Blind Spell was given for review by MindWare.

Posted in 10 and up, 6-8 year-olds, 8 years and up, Games, Language, Reading, Strategies to Encourange Language Development | Leave a comment