When it comes to eliciting sounds that a child is not stimulable for, /k/ and /g/ can be tricky because they are hard to see. That said, I h...
Articulation Therapy for S Your student has an interdental lisp– or maybe a lateral lisp– and you’re feeling stuck. This feeling is something I came across often in my speech therapy sessions. One day, I decided it was time to do something about it. I wanted to correct those lisps. I’m somewhat of a perfectionist...
Hi friends! I shared a quick video of a flip through of my SLP Review Binder on Instagram and a few people wanted a more in-depth look...en...
Need ideas for getting more repetitions during articulation therapy? Here are some articulation activities speech therapy high-trial ideas!
A summary of free digital materials for speech and language that can be used by teletherapists or brick and mortar SLPs.
I was giving the CELF-4 yesterday and realized that although I like the Concepts & Following Directions subtest, there are not a lot of written materials out there that address some of the types of basic concepts on this subtest. Obviously you can do before/after directions with real life objects (jump up and down before you spin around), but I made this worksheet to work on before/after directions with pictures, which is what the CELF-4 is really testing. Click here to download!
Are you a speech pathologist that works with 4th and 5th graders? Do you need tips on how to work best with your upper elementary students? This is the ultimate SLP Guide for working with 4th and 5th grade in a school setting! In this blog post, I'm going to share some of my favorite
As SLPs it's important to keep up-to-date with EBP. I've gathered together 8 of the best sites for you to get EBP info to improve your therapy practice!
These are my must-have speech therapy materials "schools edition!" I'll share my professional philosophy so you can understand my suggestions.
Most of you seasoned therapists know and use the techniques that I am going to share, so I apologize if you are disappointed that there’s nothing new for you. However, those who have less experience under their belts and feel frustrated with the lateral lisp will appreciate these “pearls of wisdom.” What is a Lateral ... Read more
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Fluency (or stuttering) therapy is an area that many SLPs feel under-prepared to serve. While you may have had an excellent professor on the subject in grad school, it tends to be a lower incidence
It's been a busy month for me, and I'm sure you're all feeling the crunch of being over halfway through the first semester! I wanted to ta...
Check out this ultimate list of over 200 free speech therapy materials for all of your needs! Save your money for what really matters!
Core vocabulary is an evidenced-based set of words particularly useful for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) users. I've personally seen huge growth in expressive language skills of AAC users after only a few therapy sessions of instruction with core words. Core words are what make up 80% of our everyday utterances. The power of core words lies within
Let's make a fruit salad is an adapted and interactive book that focuses on many targets and objectives such as: - sequencing -prepositions -fine motor -articulation -receptive identification -labeling -following simple instructions -prepositions -fruit vocabulary and much more! It can be a great teaching resource when doing a unit on food with your students! :) Very easy to put together, instructions on
There is a short list of items every teacher considers essential to running his preschool classroom and on mine, right near the top, is white glue – gallons of the stuff. Typically we order 6 gallons to start the year, knowing that we’ll likely have to place a second order sometime around late winter. While most of us think of glue as a means to an artistic end, un-indoctrinated preschoolers approach white glue as an art medium all by itself (much the way they do tape). We do dozens of collage projects in class using all sorts of exciting materials (e.g., carpet squares, feathers, spare marker caps, small metal parts from machines we’ve disemboweled) but inevitably there are a half-dozen or more finished pieces that are nothing more than a pool of glue overrunning a piece of cardboard. Usually, these pieces are stuck so firmly to our drying shelves that I have to use a screwdriver to pry them off. Often they’ve dripped through onto the art of others. Sometimes they take the whole week to fully dry. Man, that drove me crazy as a beginning teacher. “Don’t you want to put something in all that glue?” I’d ask, but as I’ve learned to give up my agenda in favor of the children’s, I’ve just started ordering more glue. And why not? As an art medium it costs less than half of what tempera paint costs, and while clean up is a bit more of a challenge than paint, it’s still water soluble, at least while it’s wet. Where I once saw waste, I now see beauty. And it’s the greatest beauty of all; it’s that look of meditation or concentration that settles over the face of a child as she systematically empties bottle after bottle of glue onto a target of some kind. It's clearly a scientific exploration into the physics of viscosity, gravity, and squirt bottles. Or maybe it's part of a spiritual journey, judging from the look of tranquility on some of their faces. It doesn't really matter. All I know is that some kids are driven to it and far be it from me to tell them when to stop. I love how earnestly they hold up their empty bottle to declare, “I need more glue.” And I love even more that we hand him another full bottle. An adult could stand there over a child’s shoulder, I suppose, and give instructions on the “proper” use of glue, stopping him after those few essential drops, but I’ve found it far more satisfying to just let kids get there on their own – and they always do, eventually. But first we have to let them get it out of their systems. One way we do this are our ongoing group, glue collage projects. Parents have come to refer to this as the “glue table,” although it is technically our Do-It-Yourself Table. I have an enormous collection of what was formerly referred to as garbage that we use for these projects. Here is one we are working on right now: We’ve been adding to this piece since the second week of school; not every day, but frequently enough that the glue bottle emptiers among us are getting their fill. As you can see, we’ve decided to start adding glitter – you know, for the holidays – and it will take a ton of glue if we’re going to encase the whole thing. We usually keep these projects around for several months, bringing them out until they attract no customers, then they get pitched. Although, here’s one that’s been hanging on our wall for the last 3 years: That particular class of kids really grew to treasure their group project and were one day talking about wanting to paint the whole thing gold. That evening I gave it a coat of metallic gold spray paint and put it by the front door for the kids to see as they entered. As they arrived, each and every one of them said, “Look mom! It turned gold!” (Note: Many of you have asked for a photo of our volcano. I'll try to remember to take one today and post it here tomorrow.) -->
A step-by-step plan for how to fix a frontal lisp in speech therapy: therapy activities, video demonstrations, & word lists for interdental /s/.
As the school year is winding down and you are thinking about all of the new things to include in your daily routine next year keep reading!!! The Expanding Expression Tool is an AMAZING resource that has helped my students become not only better writers but better communicators too. The Expanding Expression Tool or EET is used as a multi-sensory approach to improve oral and written language. Okay...so what does it look like and how does it work? Let's check it out..... What it looks like?: How does it work?: Each part of the EET serves a purpose. Check out the chart below to see what each color stands for. How can you use this to improve oral and/or written language? 1st- Select an item 2nd- have a student describe it 3rd- introduce EET 4th- have the student describe the item again and be amazed!! Example: You show the student penguin. They may say it's an animal that lives in the cold. After introducing EET the student will be able to share a lot more about the penguin. They will be able to tell you..... green/group: Animal blue/do: swim, walk/waddle, eat, lay eggs what does it look like?: black and white what is it made of?: comes from an egg pink/parts: flippers, bill, feathers, neck, eyes, webbed feet, claws white/where: Antarctica, zoo what else do you know?: males sit on eggs, mates for life, waddle and swim As the students get used to this their overall oral and written language will improve tremendously. You can use this tool in a variety of ways including, direct instruction, para led station, writing center, homework and more!! After my students were comfortable with EET, I set up an EET station in my classroom in lieu of my traditional writing center. You can even differentiate within EET. You may have some students who are just working on stating 1 word answers, but you can also have students practice responding in full sentences. Student 1 Example: Green/Group: animal Student 2 Example: Green/Group: The penguin belongs to the animal group. Overall, EET has been an amazing tool for my students and a wonderful additional to my classroom. We use this resource but you can also check out Teachers Pay Teachers for more. Or you can check out the original kit here! I hope you are able to implement EET into your day next year!! Follow my blog with Bloglovin
One of the most important aspects of our practice in speech-language pathology is making sure our assessments and interventions are evidence-based and are in line with the current research. All I hear about in grad school is EBP EBP EBP!! It's THAT important. I have shelves full of textbooks and notes that have all of this information in it. However, is that really practical to flip through all that information all the time just for 1-2 paragraphs?! NO WAY! I was getting frustrated and wanted a quick and easy reference material to solve that problem. So I created this Evidence-Based Practice Binder to do just that! This binder is intended to be used as a tool to guide you in your decision making. It is intended to serve as a guide and summary and is, by no means, a replacement for the actual articles and research and is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Please read the articles listed for full descriptions. At the beginning of the binder, I have a section specifically on evidence-based practice, what it is and how to implement it. At the beginning of each section, you will find introductory information about various disorders and some assessment principles for certain areas. These are followed by charts for the most common areas of our field in the school, clinic, and hospital settings. In each chart are the therapy techniques for that area, the intended population, a description of the technique, the evidence showing it to be effective or ineffective, and other helpful notes. Also included are a list of commonly used apps for each area. Some of them are evidence-based, some are not. This binder could be used as a reference for day-to-day practice, when planning and implementing IEP goals, when addressing parent/employer concerns or questions, when studying for the Praxis exam, when you need a new or different technique to try, or when you have a particularly challenging case and need a starting point. The following areas are included: What is Evidence-Based Practice (pg. 4) Key Steps to Evidence-Based Practice (pg. 5) Overview of Assessment/Management of School-Age Population (pg. 6) Service Delivery (pg. 7-10) Articulation/Phonology (pg. 11-21) Social Language (pg. 22-37) Vocabulary (pg. 38-46) Grammar (pg. 47-56) Fluency (pg. 57-63) Phonological Awareness (pg. 64-69) Swallowing (pg. 70-82) Augmentative and Alternative Communication (pg. 83-92) Thank You (pg. 93) Terms of Use (pg. 94) Each area is separated by its own cover page. I plan to keep adding to this resource over time. If there is something you would like to see added, please email me at [email protected]! I'd be happy to add it for you. Does this seem like something you would like?? You can find it in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here! I will give a copy of this binder to one lucky reader!! Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win! a Rafflecopter giveaway
We’ve all been there. After months of drill and practice and tongue depressors, he’s finally got his /r/ sound! He can say it in words, in phrases, even sentences and short conversations. You’re thinking he’s definitely on his way out the door with a “graduation” certificate soon. Then you see him in the hallway. He grins […]
Check out this ultimate list of over 200 free speech therapy materials for all of your needs! Save your money for what really matters!
You know the lingo. 1 step 2 step Multi-step before after all but under neither Last year, I worked on following directions constantly. I would target the above vocabulary and usually students understood what to do after a few sessions. I found that my kiddos would do a great job following directions in my small […]
April is nearly here and we are geared up for some fun spring-filled learning! This month we are keeping it rigorous and FUN! The following April
Check this post out for some simple ideas to implement in therapy with young stuttering clients. Post includes The Speech Guy and Speech Roads Stuttering therapy with kids is so tricky! There is this balance between teaching awareness of the stutter and lowering emotional reactivity to the stutter that I am still working on mastering. It is different for each child and you really have to get a feel for how they will react. I only had 3 stuttering kids on my caseload this past year and they were as different as different can be. I tried doing the therapy in a group and it worked out okay but man it was tricky since they had such individual strengths and weaknesses, planning their sessions was a bear! Here are a few little lessons that really worked for all 3 of them (they were all 6-7 years old). The Speech Guy Two of my three stuttering kids had started to develop fairly severe secondary behaviors during stuttering moments. These are behaviors that happen as the child tries to get past the stuttering moment and can include funny facial and/or body movements to try to help them out of the stutter. Examples include eye twitches, loss of eye contact, slapping the leg, rocking the head forward, clicking the mouth, arrested breath, avoding words that are hard to say and a lot more. It honestly freaked me out when I evaluated them because I had no idea how to work with stuttering, especially stuttering that was severe enough to present with secondary behaviors. My supervisor at the district suggested I talk about the different parts that we use for speech and how they affect our talking. We found this Speech Guy on therapsimplicity.com. It was an awesome starting point for these kids and a fun activity to send home. We talked about each of the parts and how we use them for speech (mouth, nose, eyes, ears, voicebox, lungs) and the funny things that happen sometimes when we get "stuck" (raising eye brows, wiggling nose, tensing mouth, arrested breath, etc). The kids got to color their speech guy and the parts and take them home and tell their parents about them. Speech Roads My stuttering kids are fairly young and I was trying to come up with a good way for them to listen and evaluate stuttering behaviors. I drew these little "speech roads" during our lesson when I was trying to describe different types of "bumpy" speech to them. They really latched on to the road and we ended up using them a lot in our sessions. I cut them apart and had the kids hold up the speech road (smooth, bumpy or road block) that matched how the person was talking. Once they could identify what speech road I was using I had them listen to themselves and evaluate their own speech. I made copies that they could take home and practice evaluating theirs and other's speech.
Keep teletherapy fresh with these FREE speech therapy websites, resources, games, and materials.
I know many of you have told me that you struggle with finding age-appropriate materials for your middle school students. I know, because I struggle with this too! You can check out some great paid
Have you ever thought about using wordless videos in your speech therapy lessons? It increases engagement! Start with these videos...
I love pragmatic language evals. I even like to write the reports. Don't judge me, because I want to share my pragmatic language evaluation tools with you.
Some of our students need movement to help them learn! Speech therapy and in particular, minimal pairs, can become boring... so inject movement activities!
