Language Skills Can Impact Social Skills

When children (and adults!) have persistent difficulty making social connections, or find social situations very difficult, there are many possible factors that might be causally-linked. Thankfully we now have an increased awareness of this problem, and more referrals are being made to try to give children a valuable toolbox so they can be happy and successful as members of society.   Oftentimes parents or early teachers are the ones to notice when a child is struggling to effectively engage with his or her peers, and referrals can be made. 

Professionals look at joint-attention--the ability/desire to focus on an object or action with another person; we look at mental health, like depression and anxiety; we want to ensure all of the senses and sensory perception systems are intact--there are no hearing or vision problems or that the person does not "mis-perceive" sensory input; we look at gross and fine motor deficits that might prevent a student from meeting with success and/or "fitting in" with his or her peer group.  If these types of issues are of concern, appropriate referrals are made to a psychologist, social-worker, psychiatrist, physical therapist and/or occupational therapist. Whether or not there are "foundational" problems, such as autism-spectrum disorders, ADHD, learning disabilities, anxiety, depression or sensory issues, deficits in a variety of language skills can play a significant role in communication breakdown. Therefore, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) may help provide valuable insight into, and intervention for, students who struggle conversing and interacting with others.

SLPs can assess a wide variety of communication skills, such as identifying if students have trouble with:

• discriminating sounds in the speech stream (which makes listening tedious and frustrating)
• articulating clearly (might cause embarrassment or avoidance) 
• understanding and using vocabulary (student may avoid situations to avoid feeling "dumb")
• processing language in a variety of situations (being the "odd-one-out" when the teacher or peers talk too quickly)
• working memory (ineffective at holding onto components of directions or following conversations) 
• formulating thoughts succinctly (peers can get impatient, students can get frustrated or avoid talking)
• understanding figurative language (taking jokes, sarcasm, idioms, metaphors etc. literally can lead to peer impatience and frustration--or perceived peer-rejection).
• difficulty with higher-order thinking such as inference and prediction skills
• difficulty forming a "gestalt" from details or 
• difficulty extracting key details from a whole can cause problems in the classroom as well as problems during conversation and interaction with peers and adults.

The good news is that these skills can all be addressed if they are specifically identified.  It is not unusual for students who struggle with social conversation to lack an understanding of what the other person expects them to say, or how to expand verbally in a conversation.  Many students are unsure how to interpret--and are unaware of their own--facial expressions and body language. Many students lack vocabulary to express a variety of emotions. When the right team of professionals identify and provide tools, strategies and techniques to students with social-skills issues, when students take ownership and work toward goals, and when parents stay involved, helping their child carry-over strategies, progress can be amazing!

I have the pleasure of sharing a presentation on this topic  Maryland Chapter of the Learning Disabilities Association of America on January 14, 2014 at Kreiger Schechter Day School in Baltimore Maryland.

Vocabulary Cards Focusing on Language in Definitions

Check out the method used to help this student who had all but given up on memorizing vocabulary in science, social studies and literature because she could not handle all of the dense language that seemed meaningless. Literally, she put maximum effort into in-class work and homework, and did not bother to memorize vocabulary, hoping her grade would average out to a C.

Here is how we broke down (discussing each phrase separately) the definition for  allegory - "a narrative in which the characters, behavior and setting demonstrate multiple levels of meaning and significance." When she read the definition to me, all of the words were rushed together, she was not parsing them out for meaning.  Because this is how she was attempting to memorize (short-term for meaningless information) it was unsuccessful.  First, I gave her a "language-friendly" version of the definition.  Oftentimes the website Cobuild.com can provide these.  Check it out. Then, we broke down the definition into phrases so we could pictorially represent each phrase.



In order to help her anchor the meaning to the actual vocabulary word (she had 20 multisyllabic words to remember), the student realized there were two Ls in the word, so we wrote Level 1 and Level 2 to anchor the concept of "multiple levels of meaning".  The gestalt of the definition is that what you see is not what you get, there is deeper meaning.  She said, "Like layers of an onion" so we turned the "o" into an onion.  "Story" rhymes with "gory", the last syllable in the word allegory so we wrote that on the card as well.  Here is the front of the index card:

 

Here is another card we did for Allusion

 

Notice that the  actual letters of the word contain the very concepts that are embedded in the definition so the student had visual anchors to recall the word.  The A became a Star of David (religious), the LL became a piece of literature, the U became a boat in Boston Harbor (historical) and the I became Zeus's lightening bolt (mythological).

After studying her vocabulary terms this way, she happily announced that she had gotten a good grade on her test! 

ASHA 2013 Convention Presentation

Thanks to all the SLPeeps who came to our talk, "Using Visual Association Skills to Learn Word Meanings & Deconstructing Verbs to Infer Character Emotions."  It's a long title for InferCabulary and WordQuations Methods and the research behind these methods.  We promised to post the Power Point presentation and the handouts.  Enjoy!

Here's the link to our InferCabulary Worksheet:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/184889033/InferCabulary%C2%A9-worksheet
and to our WordQuations Worksheet:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/184889473/WordQuations-Worksheet

Using Visual Association Skills to Learn Word Meanings & Deconstructing Verbs to Infer Character Emoti...

Sharing our APPs in Chicago (ASHA 2013)

We are on our way back from Chicago and want to share some highlights from our trip.  We were at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's (ASHA) Convention in Chicago where we not only were exhibitors displaying our soon-to-be-released apps, but presented the vocabulary methods from these apps.

The response to InferCabulary and WordQuations was overwhelming with close to 400 attendees at our presentation, many of whom shared their enthusiasm for our methods and our apps.  We also received great feedback from the SLPs (speech-language pathologists) about how they would like to use our apps in their work settings.

Many who attended our workshop stopped by our table bringing their friends to show them the apps.  The vocabulary methods speak for themselves and we look forward to putting them on the APP Store soon.

If you want to see what our apps are about, check out our Indiegogo campaign video at:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/infercabulary-wordquations/x/5204144

Synonyms in the City

"No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time." - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass

Beth and I set out on an adventure last Saturday. We travelled to the Big Apple to work with Ian and Sarah to film segments for our WordQuations app so that students will see what the synonyms for words like stroll, devour and decipher look like. Ian and Sarah did an amazing job of translating these vocabulary words into video taking into account, speed, intensity and emotion for each synonym. Watching them work was truly inspirational.  

We can't wait for you to see their talent and watch their zeal in bringing these synonyms to life. We know students will enjoy their "red noses" which lend so much to conveying emotion and just make you want to smile! Stay tuned....

Posted with Blogsy

What APPs Would You Like To See?

Next week we launch our Kickstarter campaign for our first two vocabulary apps: InferCabulary and WordQuations.  The apps are scheduled to hit the Apple APP Store in late October or early November.

This week I've been thinking about our next app.  So I wanted to ask you - what speech-language app would you like to see on the iPad for your child or student?  Are you looking for one that targets written language, figurative language, or something else.  Let us know what would help you with your students or children.  Inquiring minds want to know!  

Thanks for your support and encouragement.  We really do want to hear from you!

Processing Complex Sentences Part 2

Hi All.  I'm making good on my promise to share the next installment of how we help students comprehend (and write) complex sentences.  This video demonstrates how to overtly teach students about complex sentences using FANBOYS and conjunctions although, however, nevertheless etc.  Check out how you can use a "thumbs up/thumbs down" cuing system to reinforce student understanding.

Enjoy!

Processing Complex Sentences Part 2

We're Making Progress!

[caption id="attachment_65" align="alignleft" width="84"] Beth Lawrence, MA, CCC-SLP[/caption]

Hi All! We are so excited and wanted to share with you...we are in the process of developing TWO apps that we hope to have ready by November of this year!  They are both targeting middle and high school students who need to boost vocabulary skills.  Each of these apps is innovative in its approach--not just another flashcard app--and we are excited about the feedback we have been receiving from those with whom we have shared the techniques.  Our students are also giving us lots of positive feedback.

Deena and I are filming our Kickstarter video tomorrow as well, which goes into these apps in much greater detail.   We will be sure to provide you the link as soon as we get it (to post on November 1st).

Exciting times for Communication APPtitude!

Processing Complex Sentences, Part 1

[caption id="attachment_65" align="alignleft" width="84"] Beth Lawrence, MA, CCC-SLP[/caption]

As promised, here is a video showing how we teach students the "formula" for using the words, "before" and "after" in a sentence.  This seems so basic, but I cannot tell you how many students were struggling with reading comprehension because they were mis-sequencing events in the story due to a lack of understanding of these  simple conjunctions.

We will add some more suggestions for dealing with other conjunctions shortly!

http://youtu.be/3ipvSWL6Tfk

Processing Complex Sentences: Introduction

[caption id="attachment_65" align="alignleft" width="84"] Beth Lawrence, MA, CCC-SLP[/caption]

Part One:

Because of their nature, compound and complex sentences are more difficult to process and recall than short, simple sentences, especially for those with receptive language disorders and/or working memory issues.  Complex sentences make it clear to the reader or listener what aspect of the sentence is most important.  For example, "Before you eat your breakfast, take your shower" or "Although I asked politely, I did not get the toy."  In part Two, we will discuss activities that can be done to help students who struggle with processing complex sentences, but this post is to place the spotlight on, and emphasize the degree to which those pesky dependent clauses can cause our students to struggle.

Dependent or independent clauses with connectors  can "gum up the works" for our students with working memory and language processing deficits, causing confusion, rather than clarifying.  It is not simply the number of words that makes a sentence easier or more difficult to process, it is the syntax (grammar) contained in the utterance that can significantly impact the ease with which it can be processed successfully. This difficulty can impact auditory as well as reading comprehension and we must be aware of it when working with students.

It is not uncommon for students who lack a deep understanding of conjunctions and transition words to misinterpret the message.  If students have had a full speech-language evaluation, this area is usually assessed.  For example, administration of the "Concepts and Directions" subtest of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-4)  can give us a sense for whether the student "gets" certain types of conjunctions that focus on sequencing, time and condition concepts.  The CELF -4 also assesses expressive ability to use some conjunctive adverbs like finally, however and instead. Many other language assessments assess syntax as well.

If students are having difficulty with processing spoken language and/or have reading comprehension issues, we strongly recommend a full language assessment.  Many psychoeducational assessments do not identify language deficits at this "micro-" level, and we find it invaluable to know exactly which areas of language to address when working with children in our therapy sessions.  If this is not possible, it would be of benefit to double check your student's underlying understanding of these important syntactical elements. Additionally, many SLPs find it helpful to do more in-depth work with other conjunctions and transition words than those contained on standardized assessments.

Subordinating or coordinating conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs are the fancy words for connectors or connector phrases that indicate to the listener or reader what the relationship is between the parts of the sentence.  These words automatically convey to us these relationships, but many of our students need to be taught exactly how these words/phrases work and how the placement of these words impacts how they are to understand the utterance. For example, "Before you eat dinner, do your chores" is different than, "Eat dinner before you do your chores."  And which one means the same thing as, "After you do your chores, eat your dinner"?  Why can we order the second item first in the sentence simply by using, "before you (second item)..."?  Because, English said so...it is just a rule of language our students must learn overtly. (Strategies to follow in the next post).

Although not an exhaustive list, here are some conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs by purpose:

Time: before, after, while, during the time, as long as, until, whenever, first, next, after that, since, until now, subsequently, eventually (these last few can be tricky!)

Condition: if, if and only if, provided that, as __ as (long, far, hot etc.), as if, as though, unless, whether or not, even if, on condition that

Cause/Effect: Because, due to the fact that, in order that, so that, since, consequently, as a result, therefore, hence, for this reason, thus

Contrast: although, even though, even if, despite the fact that __, while, whereas, in spite of the fact that, at the same time, conversely, besides, however, in contrast, instead, meanwhile, nevertheless, still (these last ones can be tricky!)

Similarity: likewise, similarly, also, in the same way

Importance: Furthermore, more importantly, above all, most of all

Looking forward to sharing techniques, including some cool ideas we've picked up along the way.  For example,  using drawings of  thumbs up/thumbs down to help convey meaning for sentences that contain "however" or "although".  More to come, stay tuned...

Vocabulary and Writing

We are excited to say that we are working on developing our first two apps which will focus on improving vocabulary.  Not just nouns and adjectives, but also verbs.  We've known for a long time that improving children's vocabulary can improve their reading comprehension, but did you know it can also improve written language?

Think about it.  When you write, how much time do you spend finding the right word or phrase so you don't overuse the same words?  So many of our students spend excessive amounts of time trying to figure out how to convey their thoughts and knowledge using just the right words and combinations of words.

Research has shown (Yonek, 2008) that when students are taught vocabulary using the "typical approach"  it is not very effective.  Typical vocabulary instruction has students defining words, using them in sentences, matching the word to the definition and (if students are lucky) stating antonyms and synonyms for the words.  We know robust vocabulary instruction is much more effective (Beck, McKeown, and Kucan, 2013).  Robust vocabulary instruction involves teaching different contexts of the word, using child-friendly definitions and exposing students to the same words multiple times over a period of time.  Students actively participate in activities that provide them opportunities to use, compare, contrast and experience words, including visual and multisensory activities.  In other words, learning a word once/memorizing lists of words and definitions doesn't help students to "own" the words, whereas teaching words in a variety of contexts over a longer period of time does help vocabulary "stick."

Not only did Beck, McKeown and Kucan identify improvements in students' receptive vocabulary knowledge when learned using these methods, they also discovered that students' writing had actually improved as well.  After using the robust vocabulary method, students incorporated learned words in their daily writing because they had not simply stored the words in short-term memory to be spit out on a vocabulary test, they had absorbed the vocabulary terms AND they were able to use them expressively.

Decoding Dyslexia in Parents Magazine

Take a look at this article in Parents Magazine on early detection for dyslexia. Helpful warning signs....

http://www.parents.com/kids/development/learning-disabilities/early-clues-to-dyslexia/

Poignent Poem from Bright Student with LD

[caption id="attachment_65" align="alignleft" width="84"] Beth Lawrence, MA, CCC-SLP[/caption]

So, Deena and I are not trying to make folks cry, but I wanted to share this poem from a 7th grade student I know who has dyslexia and executive dysfunction. She attends a "typical" independent school and shares her feelings of frustration and isolation after sitting in class all year with a teacher who gave demerits for failing to turn in homework (no edits):

End of the world


What if there is no end of the world. But the end of the world is simply the end of human decency. It makes sense. When you subtly slip into unconsciousness in the dark of the night and only waken when the hands of the hour start to chime.

And you crawl out of your warm comfort zone only to be splashed in the face by cold water that people call "life" and you can feel the bones under you skin under muscle trying so hard to pump you alone all day.

When the sky seems as if it's Melting you just pull out your umbrella that you have named dreams that guards you from reality. When they are crowding around you like the stars in the universe and it seems like all hope is lost there comes a ray of sunshine that burns them and their opinions to the ground.

And the warmth of their smiling face turns to dust as you awaken in the cold icy world that is your life. I mean that dream has to be real right? Or Maybe it's just God playing a trick on me saying that I will never get things right no matter how hard I try the bubble that I fill in is never the correct answer. No matter how many lessons after lesson of my own stupidity I have to sit through I never got the message.

They never received the telegraph that I had sent SCREAMING for help. And my voice was swallowed by the people telling me that I couldn't do it no matter how hard I tried. I would always be defined by my ADHD and be forced to listen to person after person calling me lazy and unwilling. But they never got the message that I sent to Earth that I was lost on Jupiter with no way to get back.

And you are saying that it's my fault? That I'm not trying hard enough to succeed in life? That no matter how many telegraphs and letters I send asking and screaming for help that it will never come? So this is what is outside of my comfort zone. A cold splash in the face with a bucket full of water that I brush off every morning until today.

Today I put my foot down and demand that someone transmit all the letters that I have attempted to send. That you read them and wish that you could have done something to make me not humiliated to be called my name, and that my parents had the decency to tell me that I wasn't trying hard. They never had to grow up with ADHD and dyslexia. That they don't understand that no matter how many hours I spend working that the code would never fully crack and for my entire life I would be pulling with all of my power to open that vault door that felt like 100 million tons for me but 4 pounds to them.

And you tell me I'm not trying hard enough? So Maybe the end of the world isn't when the sun explodes and rains fire and rock on us...Maybe the end of the world comes every day when adults help dig the divide for a child between failure and success.

Focused Thinking

[caption id="attachment_65" align="alignleft" width="84"] Beth Lawrence, MA, CCC-SLP[/caption]

Borrowing a page from Dr. Mel Levine's "The Mind That's Mine" and Maria Garcia Winner's "Superflex" curriculum, I've been using the terms, "Vacation Brain" and "Focused Brain" in working with some of my students on active listening skills and language-mediated problem-solving.  We all need to focus and to take brain breaks at different times.  Being able to flexibly switch from one state to another is important. The person who cannot turn his "Active Brain" off at night can have significant difficulty falling asleep.  But, for the person who is  unaware that listening involves active participation and constant self-talk for monitoring oneself, this frank discussion can open up a world of awareness  and metacognition.

I work with many students on my caseload who really struggle with reading and listening comprehension, remembering steps of directions, holding onto all the steps needed to solve a math word problem and simply keeping up with conversation.  For many, teaching these strategies to improve reading comprehension and working memory is enough, and the students eventually learn to  spontaneously apply the skills to new situations.  However, a few of them learn the techniques and memory strategies, but shift into "vacation mode" while in class, or even in our one-on-one sessions because they are unaware that there needs to be a distinct effort made.   Diagnosed with ADHD or not, this awareness and practice with self-identification of their brain-state has been very helpful for these few students.

Starting with a frank discussion (and drawings of the brain and frontal lobe activation) of what is happening when someone is using language to monitor, comprehend and keep track of steps, students are introduced to the idea of Vacation Brain and Active Brain.  I role model what my brain is "saying" inside when it is actively engaged in a reading comprehension task (e.g.,  "I can't believe Bob is going to open the door, doesn't he know the robber is in there? Be careful, Bob!") or while doing a math word problem (e.g., "Okay, so I know that the candy costs 25 cents each, 25 cents for each candy, okay, and I want 5, so that's  five at 25 cents. Okay, I'm gunna write that down, 25 cents times 5 equals....")  I then demonstrate the same comprehension and word problem activities while being overtly "quiet" (failing to "engage" my brain.)  The student sees and hears this, and I point out how easy it was to switch to "Vacation Brain", which was obvious in my eyes and on my face (vacant look).

I then have the students actively engage in these types of activities, prompting them with the kinds of things they could say to themselves.  They practice saying these utterances aloud, and I point out how alert and awake their faces appear.  Sometimes I provide them with a mirror or videotape them using my iPad so they can see what "active engagement" looks like.  I label this behavior, "Active Brain" and point out that they are really comprehending the story/on the right track with the math word problem and that their frontal lobes are activated. Once they practice this and we role play what "Vacation Brain" looks like, and how hard it is to answer comprehension questions when we read in this state, we now have a label for a desired behavior that can be used throughout our therapy sessions.  Parents can follow through with these labels as well.

Metacognition is so important!  Students need to learn about it in an overt way so that they know what is happening inside the minds of good and active  listeners.  Without this overt discussion and practice, I don't believe these students would have made the progress that they have made in speech-language therapy.

A Dyslexic's Mother's Day Essay

[caption id="attachment_934" align="alignleft" width="103"] Deena Seifert, MS, CCC-SLP[/caption]

Get the tissues ready.  Anyone who parents or tutors a child with dyslexia and/or language-learning differences knows what a struggle it can be and will appreciate this.

I got a text message from my high school senior while I was at work this morning.  She had a school paper she left at home. I want you to grab the paper on my bedside table.  My first thought was - what paper? and why didn't she remember to bring it to school with her.  I drove home at my first break a little annoyed wondering how long it would take me and when would she ever learn.  To my surprise I  found a MLA-style paper on the kitchen table.  It was entitled "A Mother's Day Project."  Here's what it said:

Dear Mom,

First off, I want to tell you how sorry I am that I didn’t do anything for you on Mother’s Day especially since you are the most deserved mother in this world to receive above and beyond gifts.  As you can probably tell, I wrote this letter like I would for school and I did this because I want this letter to be the very last paper I write in my high school years.  Yes, yes…I underlined high school because I know when I go off into college I’ll have endless papers to write.  I feel like it’s an appropriate way to end my chapter in high school because the reason I was able to flip the pages was because of you.  I don’t want this Mother’s Day Card to be all about me, but I want you to realize how much you mean to me and how much of a difference you can make in a person’s life.

 I owe you everything and more.  I would not of gotten through high school without you.  Every time I wanted to give up and listen to the voices in my head that were telling me I couldn’t, you would step in and make your voice louder telling me that I could. When I left Friendship School, I remember feeling so lost.  I did not prepare myself for the challenges I would have to face, but you did.  Even to this day, I still have my moments of wanting to give up and sometimes I would even find reasons to blame you for my mistakes which was stupid because you were the only person holding my hand through every challenge.  You are so special to me because you and I are always going to have a connection that no one will ever understand or ever dare to come between.  You understand me when it comes to my dyslexia, which is something I could not explain to anyone.  I was sensitive when it came to my dyslexia because I didn’t want to be different from anyone else, especially my younger brother or older sister.  I used to think that no one would be proud of me when it came to school or academics, but I realize now that you are.  I also realize that being dyslexic will not define me.  You are always picking me up when I fall down and you make me work harder because you know what I am capable of.  Every second that it takes for me to walk across the stage, get my diploma, shake hands and move my tassel to the other side of my cap…will all be for you.

            You are my number one supporter, you are my cheerleader, you are the voice inside my head telling me that I can overcome any challenge, you…you are my mom.

Happy Mother's Day - I LOVE YOU.

After I dried my eyes, I realized she really had been listening to me all these years.

...All the times I asked how her paper was going and she rolled her eyes...

...All the many topics we brainstormed ideas for and she wanted to give up...

...All the nights I nagged her to keep going and working...

...All the times she rolled her eyes, said "Oh, Mom!"

...All the "You Can Do It" pep talks and the "No, I can't" responses...

She listened. She appreciated the journey and she gave me the best Mother's Day present she could possibly give me....an essay of her thanks.  She gets an A++ from me.  You can bet I'll be jumping up and down at her graduation hooting, hollering and embarassing both of us.  It was worth the journey...

Ways to Make Vocabulary More Meaningful

In working on our vocabulary pilot study for the summer, we've been researching vocabulary techniques.  With finals just around the corner for high schoolers, it's a good time to improve study skills for vocabulary.

Beck and McKeown have just updated their book Bringing Words to LIfe, Robust Vocabulary Instruction, and it is one of my new favorite books for vocabulary.  They have some tips you might find useful this time of year.

1. Don't just use synonyms or antonyms; use word associations to learn vocabulary terms.  If your child/student is trying to learn the meaning of "gregarious," instead of focusing on the fact that gregarious is the opposite of introverted, think about a character on TV that typifies "seeking and enjoying the company of others." I think of Mandy on Last Man Standing on ABC.  She is the outgoing, middle child who enjoys spending time with friends more than spending time with her school books.


2. Put vocabulary into the context of experiences.  You can say, "Describe a time when you or one of your friends was gregarious."  


3. Use idea completions.  The popular girl was more gregarious than I was at the party, because...

Basically, the meaning of vocabulary words "stick" when the meanings are clear, in a student-friendly context, and involve thinking about and using the meanings right away.

More to come....

The SLP and SOAP Notes

In private practice, treatment notes are an important part of what we do.  It allows us to chart the progress of our students, keep on track with treatment, plan for future sessions and re-evaluate our methods each time we work with a student.

Traditionally these notes are done by hand, but the new wave is to keep track electronically.  In order to record notes, first and foremost, you must have privacy controls in place.  This means using a password on your ipad or computer so others cannot login accidentally or on purpose to view client notes.

Second, you need a backup system so that if notes are deleted accidentally, you are able to retrieve them easily.  Using a cloud based storage system such as iCloud allows you to access the notes across devices.  However, if you delete a file on your iPad, it will be deleted on your iCloud, so think about using another cloud-based storage system like Dropbox to avoid accidental deletions.

A final level of security for those using digital devices is to backup your computer with an external hard drive, also password protected, and stored at another location outside of your office.

I use my iPad to record notes on Pages during sessions.  The iPad takes up less space on the table than a paper folder would.  It allows me to quickly record notes as we go and takes less time away from the student while we are working.  The best part about typing notes and printing them out every few months is that it saves paper.  Typing my notes stores about 1.5 months worth of notes on one side of a printed page.  When handwriting my notes, I could only fit about 2-3 weeks worth per side of a page.

Finally, the newest trend is to create a Google form, spreadsheet or document to record progress for students.  Graphs and tables can enhance the visual factor of a student's progress.

What's your preferred way to take notes during your speech-language sessions in your private practice?

Communication and Homework Tools Presentation

[caption id="attachment_934" align="alignleft" width="103"] Deena Seifert, MS, CCC-SLP[/caption]

I enjoyed sharing my strategies and ideas with attendees to the Individual Differences in Learning (gifteddifferentlearners.org) Monday night (April 8th).

If you missed the presentation or want to see it again, here is the slideshare video below.

[slideshare id=18358071&doc=ppcommandhwtechpresentation-130407111324-phpapp02]

Thanks for reading!

Practical Language Strategies for Parents

[caption id="attachment_934" align="alignleft" width="103"] Deena Seifert, MS, CCC-SLP[/caption]

If you are in the Baltimore area, you might want to check out Monday night's meeting of the Individual Differences in Learning Association, Inc. (gifteddifferentlearners.org) 7 pm at the Miller Library in Ellicott City.

They provide support, training and information for teachers, students, parents and others concerned with the well-being of learners.  It's a very informative, supportive atmosphere and they provide a great service for all.

I'll be talking about low tech and high tech strategies to make the learning process easier when helping their kids with homework and maybe present a few new ideas that educators would enjoy learning about.

If you can't make the meeting, tomorrow night I'll post a copy of the presentation on this blog and a copy of the handout.

Social-Pragmatics Can Be Impacted by a Variety of Factors

Please view our PowerPoint presentation that we uploaded to SlideShare for you!

[slideshare id=17510389&w=427&h=356&sc=no] <div style="margin-bottom:5px"> <strong> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/communicationapptitude/social-pragmatics-and-language" title="Social Pragmatics and Language" target="_blank">Social Pragmatics and Language</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/communicationapptitude" target="_blank">communicationapptitude</a></strong> </div>

Thanks for reading.

Articulation Practice and Mad Libs

[caption id="attachment_226" align="alignleft" width="113"] Deena Seifert,
M.S., CCC-SLP[/caption]

When we work with students on their speech sounds, we are counting on the student and his family to practice at home to carryover the techniques.  Mad Libs has created an iOS app that can help students carryover practice.  I give my students a list of their target sound in words categorized by noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.  We open the app, choose a Mad Lib such as "Sleepover Party," "Camping Daze" or "Original Mad Libs" - there are so many to choose from - and then type in their words.  When we are finished, we add their picture and email it to their mom or dad.  Now they've got a story with their target sound to practice before our next session.



Parents can download the app and use it at home, as well, for even  more carryover practice.  What do you use for carryover practice at home?  We'd like to hear what you are using with your students or children!

High School Vocabulary

Hi all.  Deena and I have been busy lately, sorry we haven't posted much. Lots of excitement "behind the scenes."

I wanted to share some index card words that a smart young lady in high school worked on with me. This student had all but given up on memorizing vocabulary in science, social studies and literature because she could not handle all of the dense language that seemed meaningless.  Here is how we broke down (discussing each phrase separately) the definition for  "allegory - a narrative in which the characters, behavior and setting demonstrate multiple levels of meaning and significance." When she read the definition to me, all of the words were rushed together, she was not parsing them out for meaning.  Because this is how she was attempting to memorize (short-term for meaningless information) it was unsuccessful.



In order to help her anchor the meaning to the actual vocabulary word (she had 20 multisyllabic words to remember), the student realized there were two Ls in the word, so we wrote Level 1 and Level 2.  The gestalt of the definition is that what you see is not what you get, there is deeper meaning.  She said, "Like layers of an onion" so we turned the "o" into an onion.  "Story" rhymes with "gory" so we wrote that on the card as well.  Here is the front of the index card:

 

Here is another card we did for Allusion

 

Notice that the  actual letters of the word contain the very concepts that are embedded in the definition so the student had visual anchors to recall the word.  The A became a Star of David (religious), the LL became a piece of literature, the U became a boat in Boston Harbor (historical) and the I became Zeus's lightening bolt (mythological).

After studying her vocabulary terms this way, she happily announced that she had gotten a good grade on her test!

Apps That Read to You

[caption id="attachment_250" align="alignleft" width="113"] Deena Seifert
M.S., CCC-SLP[/caption]

Isn't technology amazing?  Not only do we have book readers (Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc.), but there are apps out there that will read to you.  This technology is known as "text-to-speech."  Here's some information about some of the apps on the market.  As always, before you press "buy" make sure you have done a little investigation and read the reviews that come with each app.

Read2Go by Bookshare (19.99) - From Bookshare (a free digital library for users with physical or learning disabilities) Read2Go is an app that allows you to download books from the Bookshare library directly to your iPad.  It has a text-to-speech feature with a male or female voice which can be set at a desirable rate for the listener.

FireFly by Kurzweil (Free) - for those with Kurzweil computers and accounts, you can download Firefly onto your iPad to read items in your Kurzweil library or the Firely digital library. 

Speak it! - $1.99 - This app will highlight words as they are read to you and can save them to an audio file.  You can adjust the speed of the voice and hit pause, when needed.  What's great about this app is that it can run in the background as you are working.



Web Reader HD $4.99 -  a web browser that will read the web to you. You can chose where on the web page you would like it to start reading.  It also has male and female voices with speed settings.  Files can be synced to your Drop Box account, as well.

SpeakPad - Free (Mobi) - SpeakPad has a female voice with the ability to buy other voices.  You can adjust the rate, emails text, saves documents and opens documents. It's free so watch out for ads or the cost of additional voices.

Remember, free apps will  likely include advertising of new apps and other information that you might not want to see each time.  Sometimes, it's better to spend a few dollars to lessen the aggravation of pop-up ads.  The market is constantly changing.  Do you have a favorite text-to-speech app?  Let us know.

"R" ticulation

[caption id="attachment_65" align="alignleft" width="84"] Beth Lawrence, MA, CCC-SLP[/caption]

This post is targeted at speech-language pathologists who work on articulation, but might be helpful for parents/tutors as well.  The "R" sound can be a very tricky sound to correct.  This is an excellent blog post by a speech-language pathologist named Katie:

http://www.playingwithwords365.com/2011/10/my-tricks-to-teaching-the-r-sound/#comments

Her ideas are fantastic! I wanted to share one additional technique I discovered a few years ago in working with a student who had been in articulation therapy for 4 years.  I now use this technique with every "R" case, and I have to say the turn-around time for therapy has dropped considerably.  This student was able to "bunch his tongue" in the back as he had been taught by one therapist, and he used a retroflexed "R" (another therapist) that made him sound like he was trilling in conversational speech.  His "R" sounded rounded and a lot like "ooohr"  Using a "Mr. Mouth", we reviewed the anatomy of the tongue, teeth and mouth.  It became apparent that the sides of his tongue were not engaged with his upper teeth, rather his tongue was "floating" inside his mouth--exactly the position to get a nice, "ooohr" sound!

I placed my hands in a rigid position about 4 inches apart, then had him place his own hand between the "teeth" I had created with my hands.  In order to orient him to how his hand and tongue could move in unison, I asked him to say "t-t-t" and "g-g-g" while moving his hand in the same manner that his tongue was moving (i.e., the tips of his fingers moved upward for "t" and his wrist moved upward as he produced "g").  After he got the gist of moving hand and tongue in unison, I had him pretend to be my teeth, my hand became my "tongue" and I showed him how his tongue was not spreading to gain firm contact with his molars, thus creating a neutralized "R" sound.  I then spread my hand (again, representing what my tongue was doing) to obtain firm lateral pressure on his hands (my teeth), producing a strong "R" sound.  Here is a video my husband was patient enough to do with me:

[wpvideo PMu4cJQY]

With my student, we reversed the process, his tongue easily followed his hand movement as it pressed laterally against my two hands.  Because his tongue was now "anchored" laterally on his teeth,  he made the first strong "R" sound he had ever made.  He moved from "R" approximations in all positions of words to being dismissed ("R" in conversation with 95-100% accuracy as reported by parents and teachers) in five months.  This method has worked with my students, whether the student is using retroflexed or bunched "R".  Some students have needed some strengthening work for this new "spreading" movement, which can easily be done using two (flavored) tongue depressors, one on the left and one on the right side of the tongue.  Resisting slight compression between the two tongue depressors helps to strengthen the lateral portions of the tongue, increasing success.

The Puzzle Method and Writing

[caption id="attachment_226" align="alignright" width="113"] Deena Seifert,
M.S., CCC-SLP[/caption]

Beth shared The Puzzle Method with us, which helps writers develop main ideas and key details.  I've borrowed her puzzle idea and started using it with my elementary school writers who are writing sentences to describe pictured situations.  Sometimes students are overwhelmed with the many actions in a picture and don't know where to start.

"Taking a page" from Beth's strategies, I make a photocopy of a picture and cut it up into puzzle pieces.  The student puts the puzzle together, determines the main idea of the picture and creates a topic sentence.

After writing the topic sentence, the student chooses one of the puzzle pieces and writes a sentence about it, and so on with each puzzle piece until a sentence has been formulated about each puzzle piece.  Finally, we work on formulating the concluding sentence.

[wpvideo LjKfF2Q8]

[wpvideo PAC7vgtp]

[wpvideo VEXQtbwz]

This method can be used to create compound and complex sentences by using 2 or more puzzle pieces:

[wpvideo SJn0Ow7c]

Breaking a picture up into defined puzzle pieces, breaks down the activity for the student and decreases the frustration that can be caused with a multi-step writing activity.

Video of Puzzle Main Idea Technique

[caption id="attachment_65" align="alignleft" width="84"] Beth Lawrence, MA, CCC-SLP[/caption]

Hi All.  A couple of weeks ago, we shared the idea of using a puzzle to help students with Main Idea/Key Details.  We've uploaded some video segments to youtube.com/edu.  The puzzle pieces each have velcro and attach to a large board covered in velcro.  The first video explains the overview of the puzzle and how it will be used to have the student extract key details.  We apologize the sound is a little tricky.  Turn the volume up to maximum!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s51GH9FhxnY&feature=youtu.be

The second is a section I filmed while working  with one of my students who struggles with main idea/key details/insignificant details.  She is an amazing "out of the box" thinker who notices cool things others may not notice. However, she sometimes misses the primary components in stories, so this activity was perfect for her. She enjoyed the activity, and even said,  "Miss Beth, you should make this into an app game where students click on the puzzle pieces, then write a story about it using the details they pick from the puzzle!"  Hmmm...cool idea!  We edited this 15 minute session into 3 parts.

The links are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7oSf6nSWm0&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6ufY57Rjik&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cax-h5dA2mQ&feature=youtu.be

 

Note how, through use of graphic organizers, the student was guided to move from provision of details in a serial manner, to producing a cohesive summary of the entire puzzle.   Hope you find it useful!

Mobile Apps News

This is an exciting time for Communication @PPtitude! Our first mobile app is in the works. The storyboard has been delivered to our software engineer and we are excited to experience the "birth" of our first piece of technology. We will keep you updated on it's progress!

Deena is also a "student" again, taking an online course in mobile app development and is officially an Apple Developer. Beth is working on a research grant for a vocabulary program we will eventually share with you. Good times!

Meanwhile, we thought we would share a few apps on the market that you might find useful. The first one is free, called "Chain of Thought" by Jay Bacal. It's a free association word game that is great for word retrieval which is the difficulty in recalling words on demand. One of the techniques for improving word recall is to think of words associated the word you are searching for to retrieve the target word. for example, syrup goes with pancakes and a bat goes with a baseball. The game can be played solo, with another player or online. Adults and kids will enjoy this free app so much, they won't notice its language benefits.

The second app is Inspiration Software which has reduced the price of their Mac and PC software by 50% for a limited time. (Inspiration Maps for the iPad is just $9.99. Using it with a touch screen is great for students.) You've read about this software on our blogs about writing. It's a software program that allows students to work in diagram or outline form for brainstorming ideas, mapping out ideas about a s research topic, and organizing information for writing as well as verbal formulation. We can't say enough good things about this software for elementary to college students. So, if you were thinking about getting Inspiration, now's the time to buy it. In fact, we use Inspiration when we are "mapping out" our ideas for apps and research ideas.

Thanks to all of our supporters! We've passed the 2,000 mark on hits to our blog and we are so grateful!

[caption id="attachment_64" align="alignleft" width="113"] Deena Seifert, MS, CCC-SLP[/caption]

Main Idea Versus Detail Trouble??

[caption id="attachment_65" align="alignleft" width="84"] Beth Lawrence, MA, CCC-SLP[/caption]

I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to 2013!  I'd like to share a couple of ideas for talking to students about Main Idea versus Details.  Have your students/children ever attempted to share a main idea by re-telling the entire story? As if every detail were just as essential as the detail before? Deena and I see this frequently with our students.

Two techniques come to mind that seemed to work for these particular students, so if they can help you to help one other child, that would be wonderful!  One is a third grade student who is a Math Whiz and is really smart. I kept talking to him using "language terms" and I finally realized I might get farther with him if I spoke "his language."  I had him read a story that had five sentences.  The story came from Visualizing-Verbalizing Stories Book 1 (If you are not familiar with Visualizing-Verbalizing, it is AMAZING--more information can be found at lindamood-bell.com.) I randomly assigned single digit numbers to each sentence and asked him to add the numbers up. Like this:

Math Example Main Idea

He wrote the numbers in a column, then added them up, quickly solved the problem, and provided me with the sum.  I compared the paragraph to a math problem, that it is our job as readers to "figure out" the answer/main idea--that we cannot simply repeat the sentences.  We wouldn't simply repeat the numbers to be added.  This really seemed to open his eyes to what we were trying to do.  We still had quite a bit of work to do, and lots of practice working on this skill, but finally I had stopped explaining, "Main Idea" using words he was not understanding.  We started talking about the "sum" of the story instead.

The second example is with an eighth grade girl who has significant difficulty, "Seeing the Trees for the Forest" (i.e., she gets the big ideas, but she's not sure how the details fit in.)  She is an artist, thinks in big ideas and loves all things visual.  We were working on writing a summary of an article together. She was not "getting" the process.  As it often happens with many of my ideas, it hit me at 2:00 in the morning that our job as "article-summarizers" (and really when we write any type of research paper) is to take someone else' perfectly beautiful puzzle (an article, articles, books, etc.), pull out the pieces that carry the most meaning, leaving behind the puzzle-pieces that are not necessary to the scene.  That is the index-card/note-taking portion of the process.  Then, we re-arrange the puzzle pieces, adding our own "pieces" (language) to make a cohesive whole that is similar to the original, but has our artistic flair and our viewpoint as the authors.

For the next session, I brought a 100 piece puzzle and had her physically extract the pieces she saw as being important.  As we extracted important details from the article (not always an easy task,) we wrote them on index cards.  I had my student tape a puzzle piece to each index card. I made sure that similar topics were attached to puzzle pieces from the same area of the puzzle so they would be grouped together in our summary in a way that matched the themes within the puzzle.  Once we had our index cards/puzzle pieces written, we used post-it notes to connect the ideas into a cohesive paragraph using conjunctions and sequence words. If there is interest, I would be willing to duplicate this process so you have a visual--I wasn't yet in the "digital age" when I was working with this student.

Hope these ideas might help someone else working with a student on main idea/details!  Let us know.