sutton010

As promised, I took the Counseling Theories and Skills for SLPs course at LinguiSystems and received 0.2 CEUs or 2 hours of Continuing Education Credit. It was a nice course. The presentation was easy to read and the 20 question multiple-choice quiz was straightforward. It was a good reminder of how counseling skills fit into our scope of practice as Speech-Language Pathologists in a variety of settings. It explained several counseling theories and reviewed specific skills and techniques that can be applied in key moments like conveying a diagnosis, first therapy sessions, and discharge. It also discussed when to refer a client to another appropriate professional. I enjoyed the reminder that our clients and their families experience a spectrum of emotions in response to the problems they are experiencing and that helping them navigate those emotions is an essential part of effective speech therapy that is easily forgotten. As a parent of a child with a speech disorder I viv...

Practice /g/ in Final Position Click on the image to open it to full size and then right click to save it to your computer. Print the game board and gather a die and a small game piece for each player. Put the game pieces on the start box, decide who will go first, and let that person begin by rolling the die and moving that number of squares on the game board. You can have the players practice the words in isolation, in pairs, in phrases, or in sentences. You can provide models and cues if necessary. Adapt the stimuli to the level your student needs to work at. When you're done, review the words for additional simple drill practice. Then send the game board home or to the classroom for extra practice. If you are a parent practicing at home, save the game board in a binder to play again another time. You could also have your child play with a younger or older sibling or send it to an aunt or grandparent's house for extra practice. This worksheet was adapted from t...

Late last week, my 5 year old son apparently got sick in the middle of the night. He took care of things all by himself, managed to throw-up in the potty, and put himself back to sleep. I didn't learn about it until the morning when he was mostly back to normal. We kept him home from school that morning, just to be safe, but other than fatigue and a lack of appetite it was the easiest 12 hour stomach bug ever weathered by a parent. Now, instead of silently worshiping my good luck in the privacy of my own mind I may have mentioned to several people over the weekend how amazingly lucky we had been and how proud I was of Michael's ability to take care of himself. We also had the most social weekend we've had in the past 12 months with a playdate Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Oh, and the children spent one full morning at my parents' house where my mother is recovering from major surgery. On Sunday, as I sat in the living room with Michael, Ava, and our guests, Ava...

Background Let's look back in time to December 29-30, 2012. That was the weekend after Christmas. You were all having quality time with your families right? You'd think I would have been doing the same, but no. Instead, I was sitting at my computer while my husband had quality time with the children. I had left my ASHA and state licence renewals to the last minute and still needed 5 more CEUs before I could ethically renew my licences. I logged on to the Linguisystems Free CEU page and dug in. I did get it all done. All CEU requirements are met and licences are current. However, I really do need a plan that doesn't involve frantic, last minute sacrifices of quality family time during the holidays. The CEU Challenge I'm going to sit down and earn CEUs every week (all of the LinguiSystems CEU courses are worth more than one) until I get the 15 I need this calendar year. You are welcome to join me. Here's my syllabus: Week 1: Counseling Theories and Sk...

As you probably noticed, I just released a new /ɑ/ speech therapy kit in the Testy Shop . I wanted to specifically mention that this is not new content. Everything included in the new kit is included in the larger Simple Vowels speech therapy kit . So if you already own the Vowels kit you have no reason to buy this new one. I had a request from a reader who needed just the /ɑ/ materials from the Vowels kit for her student and couldn't afford to buy the entire vowels kit right now. I'm offering the mini-kit for only $4.95 so if you've been thinking about trying a premium kit, but wanted to check one out at a lower price point, here is your opportunity. I have started working on the next kit. It will be an /f/ Speech Therapy Kit and will include materials designed to let you teach /f/ in Initial, Medial, Final, and Mixed positions from a motor-speech articulation approach. I'm hoping to get it done in the next couple of weeks and make it available in the shop ...

/ɑ/ $4.95 Check out additional speech kits in the store ! Automatic discounts of 20-30% apply when buying 2 or more sets. Need to teach a child to make an /ɑ/? Tired of buying card sets and resource books that don't work for your students? Need the convenience of printing resources from your own computer? Want to find a wide variety of therapy resources in a single, instantly downloadable, source? Motor-Speech Articulation Method: /ɑ/ Card Sets and Resources Note: All of the contents in this therapy kit are included in the larger Simple Vowels kit . If you already own the Simple Vowels kit you do not need to purchase this item. This comprehensive therapy kit and manual has been designed from the ground up to take a motor-speech approach to speech therapy. Target words are simple in syllable shape and avoid consonant blends and vocalic /r/ sounds. They are sortable by increasing difficulty of phonemic complexity. Begin with the easiest cards and work your way up ...

Birthdays, holidays, trips, surgeries, and reduced childcare have been conspiring to decimate my previously immaculate record of regular posting. Bear with me please, I'm working on it. We just had Ava's second IEP meeting. She's come such a long way. (Brief review for those who aren't caught up. We began almost exactly two years ago with her early intervention evaluation . At that time she was barely talking at all even though she was almost two years old. Even more concerning was that she only had a few speech sounds she could make and she couldn't imitate. She was also giving up - beginning to turn to rudimentary gestures instead of even trying to talk. Over the next several months we started using communication boards and sign language which gave her some tools to communicate and made her much happier. She began receiving services and working with me intensively at home. We all worked hard, and we saw a great deal of progress. She learned new sounds ...

Free Download: 20 Brain Break Activities for Use with Small Groups Homeschooling - Small Therapy Groups - Scouts - Extra-Curricular Activities Brain Breaks are short 2-5 minute activities used to help children get the wiggles out during a transition from one activity to another. You might even choose to use one in the middle of a lesson or activity if you feel like the children need a brief break in order to refocus. Set a 2-5 minute timer when beginning a brain break to keep them consistently short and encourage quick active participation. The other great thing about brain breaks is that while serving their primary purpose of "getting the wiggles out" and helping transition from one activity to the next, they also work on other skills. You'll find brain breaks that use music, balance, gross-motor and physical coordination, teamwork, following directions, imagination and creativity, and self-control. It is a way to build working on important non-academic sk...

Scholastic has almost 2000 instantly downloadable teacher resource books and children's ebooks on sale for $1 each . The dollar deals expire 1/9/13. Teacher resource books and children's ebooks that work on word families work well for targeting sounds in final position. Phonics readers that address initial consonants work well for targeting sounds in initial position. And now I'm off to build a shopping cart for myself... Enjoy! Edited to add: Scholastic has apparently changed their Teacher Express store since the last time I visited in an extremely annoying way. Now, instead of being able to preview pages from the books, clicking on the "See More" button simply brings up a bigger picture of the cover. This would be tolerable if their descriptions were more than 1-2 sentences each, but as it is, now I feel like I have hardly enough information to justify even a $1 purchase. I'm having to manually go to Amazon's website, search for the item, and ho...

We finally decided. We are going to do it. Next year, I'm going to homeschool the children. No Kindergarten registration for us. Why homeschool? Do you know that feeling you get when you find the perfect gift and you just know it is the right one? How about when you're five minutes into a conversation with a person you just met and you know they're going to become a good friend? Think about redecorating a room and finding just the right color for the walls - a color you know will make you happy every time you enter the room. My husband and I have a shorthand phrase we use for that feeling of finding a perfect fit. We say, "It speaks to us." That is how I feel about the idea of homeschooling. It speaks to me. It calls to me. It just feels right. At a fundamental level, I just know I want to do it. I need to do it. I would regret it if I didn't at least try it. I have two inquisitive, enthusiastic, bright, cheerful, interactive preschool-ag...

Practice /v/ in Initial, Medial, and Final Position Click on the image to open it to full size and then right click to save it to your computer. Print the sheet in color or black and white. If the child you are working with doesn't have the fine motor control to color in the entire balloon you could color it for them. Another option is to have them put an "X" or check in the balloon in the appropriate color. (An X or checkmark also has the side benefit of speeding up the rate of practice and the consequential number of repetitions.) You can practice the words in isolation, in pairs, in phrases, or in sentences. You can use the words with or without cues. Adapt the stimuli to the level your student needs to work at. When you're done, review the words sorted by position for additional simple drill practice. Or, review the words in the order they appear in the balloons (the word positions mixed up) for harder drill practice. Then send the worksheet home for p...

As you may have intuited by my unprecedented blogging silence, things have been busy around here. Holidays, the lack of preschool, and a three week long illness (requiring two courses of different antibiotics to conquer) pretty much eliminated all time and energy for blogging. We had a lovely holiday. Although, to be honest, somehow it just all went by in a blur. The insanity began with planning for Michael's birthday in November and continued through Thanksgiving, packing for and going on a cruise with extended family, last minute Christmas preparation, and then Christmas. At least three weeks of that time I spent pitifully ill. (Now, to shine an accurate light on the situation, I pretty much only do "pitifully" ill. Either I'm slightly under the weather and muddle through ignoring minor symptoms, or things are serious enough that I get whiny. My husband tends to power through even major illnesses gracefully with some over the counter meds. I, on the other ha...