SLP Spotlight #SandlapperStars

Today, I was able to spend some time with the therapy team at Sandlapper Elementary.  Every Tuesday, this group of ladies combine Speech and OT for SPOT therapy.  This team consists of Dr. Kathryn Herbert, Mia Sweeney, and Tess Ellis.  Today's activity focused on the story Apple Trouble.

Here is a look at some of their creative ideas, and how they incorporated directions, core vocabulary, expressive language, and fine motor skills into their treatment time. 

After a short sensory activity of feeling a pine cone made to look like a hedgehog,  the students listened to a modified version of the story Apple Trouble.   I love the way the therapists made the book interactive.  You can see examples in the pictures below.

During the story the hedgehog pushes and pulls.  Here is an example of how the therapists made this real for the students.  They used a weighted ball for pushing activity and stretchy cord with handle for pulling activity.

At the end of the story, students made choices of simple objects from a field of two and fed the goat.  

To incorporate handwriting and following directions, the therapists used a light up board with a picture of a hedgehog to practice fine motor skills. 

Another fun activity to incorporate handwriting and following directions is to use the cookie sheet with three strips of velcro.  The concepts top, bottom, and middle line help students with their awareness of these concepts when writing.  The therapists also incorporated following directions using concepts beside and under. 

Happy Fall Ya'll!

It is honestly the first day of my favorite season of the year.  I love Fall.  To honor the occasion I am providing ideas for activities to use with your AAC students.

Our first activity uses the popular would you rather game.  Here is a fall edition.  As you can see I have included some SC specific references when it comes to football.  You can make it specific to the area where you live with a few changes.  I used the smartboard to make it a simple choice activity for some of my students.  You can see here what it looks like.

Incorporating food is always fun.  I like to make a fall snack which includes fall colored m&ms, peanuts, and raisins.  If there is a peanut allergy you can substitute another snack food.  I am providing an example of a following directions activity to go with this recipe. 

You can also use this activity for the student to use a communication book or device.  This activity includes core words in and open.  It also allows for requesting, describing, and commenting. 

Enjoy your first Fall day! It still feels like summer in SC! Hopefully, we will start to cool off soon!

My visit with the teacher cadets of Blythewood High

Today I had the extreme pleasure to work with the teacher cadet program at Blythewood High.  The students were interested in learning about communication using AAC.  We specifically spent time on low tech devices and how they are used.  Here are a few pictures from today.

Talk like a pirate week in Speech using Assistive Technology

One of my favorite days to celebrate in September is Talk Like a Pirate.  There are so many ways to incorporate this theme into therapy sessions.  Here are a few ideas that I have used with my students who use low tech and high tech devices.

Here is a simple game that we play where student has to guess where the gold is hiding.  I have used this with students at all levels, and they all enjoy this guessing game. 

Well, it looks like this time the gold was hiding under the red boat!  

This next activity is a sensory activity using kinetic sand and gold jewels.  You can find the sand at Wal Mart, Micheals, and Hobby Lobby.  I found the jewels at the local Dollar store.  The kids love manipulating this sand, and finding treasure is a bonus.  After they find the treasure, the can put the items IN their treasure box.  This is a great way to incorporate core vocabulary.  

My students are using the PECS plus app here to build sentences and comment on what they see.  

Another activity that is always fun is to incorporate is the dot markers.  I was able to use the dot art developed by Mia McDaniel at www.puttingwordsinyourmouth.com and low tech book to make simple requests for dot markers.  

Here is a copy of the letter I send home with my students to let the parents know what we are doing for the week. 

Hope you are able to use some of these ideas with your students!

Helpful tool for the busy SLP

Today I started to think about Talk like a pirate Day that is coming up in just a few days.  I was searching for colored pirate ships for an activity I was planning.  I decided to use my Cameo to cut out some cute ships. It was super easy, and the ships turned out so professional looking.  If you have never used a Silhouette Cameo machine before, it is a cutting tool used to cut out intricate designs. It allows you to cut card stock, vinyl, paper, fabric and some other materials.  It is a tool that I use in the speech room weekly. 

No more sticker charts!

About 5 years ago, I became frustrated with the continuous cycle of buying sticker charts for behavior in the speech room.  I started to look for some alternative ways to manage behavior, and found Class Dojo.  This is a program designed for teachers that is very easy to use.

If you are a teacher, you can go to this web site and sign up for free!  Here is the link:     https://www.classdojo.com/.  It will prompt you to set up your classes.  I normally had mine organized by groups. (ie.  first grade language,  second grade articulation, etc)  After you set up your groups, you can add students names into each folder.

Students are automatically given a little monster to go with their name once they are added to the list.  The kids love this.  I usually let them change their monster after they meet their goal.  This truly was an award within itself!

This is what the class looks like when you pull it up.  Now it is time to give some points!  Choose student's name, and a box will pop up with the different behaviors you would like to target.  These behaviors can be edited to suit the needs of the teacher.  I would like to target students walking in the hallway to speech, so I would add skill or edit one that is already there.  

Typically, I have 4 goals that I target.  Each student gets to go to the treat box when they get a total of 20 points.  Once the student has 20, we change the monster and start all over again.  This is a great tool to use in both the speech room and classroom.  I have to admit, I even used it with my own kids when they were little! Happy behavior managing!!

SLP Program Spotlight #Langfordlabs

Today I would like to put the spotlight on Langford Elementary's SLP team.  Both ladies are University of South Carolina graduates and are currently working in Blythewood.  On Fridays, they put their creativity and knowledge to the test and create great group lessons for the Autism classes at Langford.  I was able to sneak a peek today, and it was AMAZING!  Here are some of the activities they used.

The lesson began with a cute smartboard activity that incorporated song, movement, and animal identification.

The ladies then split the class into three small groups.  The teachers and teaching assistants were involved with lesson and helped to incorporate use of PECS in the three stations they had set up.  This is station #1 where students went fishing.  The students used PECS to make request for turn.  I loved seeing the kids make requests with each other for turns with the fishing poles!

The students also enjoyed some craft time.  Here they made sharks.  They used books to request more teeth and glue.

The last small group was a sensory task using water beads.  Even the teachers couldn't resist these beads.  It is so much fun to put your hands in and dig up an ocean animal.  The students used their commenting skills here with the PECS book.  The kids had a great time, and there was a lot of communication happening in the speech room today!

Google Add-ons

Today I learned about wonderful tool for those of us who use google on a daily basis.  Google add-ons allow you to do so many things with your google docs.  If you have never tried it, here is a quick guide on how to access google add-ons.

Here is what a normal google doc would look like.  Go to add-ons.

Scroll down to Get add-ons. 

A search engine will appear and you can look up all types of add-ons.  Here I was interested in making labels for my student's folders.  I located the avery label merge add-on, and hit add.  Most of these are FREE! After you hit install, you will then get a pop-up window explaining what privileges the add-on needs, and asking for permission to install it.  Finally, click the accept button to allow the add-on to install.

Now, you are ready to go.  Here I am using the extensis fonts add-on.  This allows you access to many more fonts for use in google docs.  Some other favorites that I think will be helpful to my kids are pupil pref, doc tools, texthelp study skills, mind meister, speech recognition, and Grackle talks.  If you haven't tried add-ons, put it on your to do list! You will be glad you did!