Rote Repetition

We want to teach our clients skills that become second nature or rote (think sight words or social scripts.) When working with adults, this can be an area in which he/she can be very successful since this skill is ingrained.  This is a good starting point with a client with sever speech impairment. Let's brainstorm together, what are rote speech tasks? 
Here are some I have used with my clients. 

• Counting: 1-5 then 1-10....
• Days of the week (DOW): Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...  I typically start with Monday because the phoneme /m/ is typically easier for clients than /s/ for Sunday.
• Months of the year (MOY):  January, February, March....
• ABCs (ok to sing)
• Songs:  Happy Birthday, hymns (for clients that would be familiar with these)
• Poems and/or nursery rhymes can be used, but this is very client specific.

Now it's your turn--what are other speech tasks that are a rote skill?

Supported Communication

It may be obvious that a communication deficit reaches beyond the person with the deficit, but as a clinician, how are you addressing these far-reaching issues?  One way to assist your client is to provide instruction to his/her primary communication partner.  Teach the partner what you are doing in therapy; what a cue is, when to provide it, what cues are beneficial for your client? Within your session, have the communication partner work on speaking slowly, speaking in simple and short phrases, using gestures, and allowing time for the client to process information.  By allowing the communication partner learn these skills as you are working with the client, you are empowering both individuals and allowing for more independent communication.
Here is a link to a book that provides more information on supported communication. 

3 y/o story retell

Here is a link to a story retell by a 3.10 year old female.  The story is The Three Little Pigs with a little Gingerbread Man mixed in.  Take note of her imitation of stories read to her, including print awareness, prosody, rate of speech, volume and animation.  In the background you can hear her 18 month old sister imitating parts of the story.

And the winner is...

The random winner is... Betsy V.  Come pick up your prize!
To provide feedback to a request: I can not post any information that is protected by copy right.  If I can't provide you a link to the information, then I can not post it on the blog. 

concrete categories

When targeting category generation, there are two types of categories; concrete and abstract.  A concrete category could be described as being "black and white", meaning it either is in the category, or it is not in the category (e.g., car types = Toyota).  An abstract category is more ambiguous, it may be in the category, but it may not (e.g., things that are blue = a shirt.  It may be blue, but it might be red).  Concrete vs. abstract is different when sorting items, so keep that in mind.

I frequently use the following concrete categories when working with adults:
foods- hamburger, hot dog, apple....
drinks- milk, apple juice, grape juice...
animals- cow, horse, pig...
items in a kitchen- sink, knife, cups...
items in a garage- car, rake, boxes...

The Ross Information Processing Assessment (Ross-Swain, 1996) requires the client to generate 15 items within 1 minute. The above categories allow for 15+ items per task.

GIVEAWAY

It is the 1st giveaway of the year! Don't get too excited, it is a small giveaway :)  One lucky winner will receive an oral mechanism kit that includes: a mirror, small light, 1 glove (not 2, just 1!), a grape flavored tongue depressor and other trinkets.  This package was given by Children's Mercy Hospitals & Clinic. 


How to win: enter a suggestion for the site under the comments section.  Each suggestion is an entry, so provide me lots of suggestions.

*Comments section will close February 9th at 8:00am.  Random winner will be selected at that time. 

Looking for some simple tasks?

There are free printable tasks at Practical Ausitsm Resource. You can print some category tasks, BINGO  games, and noun cards. Be sure to look at the entire website, they have a variety of links and activities.

Word lists

Learning Fundamentals has a website that provides word lists of common speech sounds including /r/. Looking for allophonic /r/? Scroll down for vowel + /r/ lists.
?? Reminder-- what is an allophone? An allophone is a phonetic variation of a phoneme.

Have an iPhone or iTouch?

Go here to see a list of apps that are great for AAC uses.  If you don't see something you like, search the app store for special education or autism, you will get some great results.