Teachers in my last elementary school were unhappy with their reading curriculum and were doggedly focused on finding something better. Turns out, this is not an uncommon occurrence in many schools. Maybe even yours.
During the time when numerous anti-oral motor articles were being published and when Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) came into vogue, a comprehensive literature review of language intervention with children was done by Cirrin and Gillam in 2008. Although the article is almost 12 years old, I bet you’ve never heard of it--or the results.
Mary Lou says, "I'm able to get most low-verbal children to imitate quickly with these systematic strategies. I've used this method extensively and has taught it to others with great success."
Squeezing in time to find, read, interpret, and figure out how to apply the results of research articles is difficult at best. If you have the same conundrum, I hope this once-a-month Research Review helps fill your needs. This is a good one.
Echo-reading a great technique to use in therapy--especially when you have a group of kids each with their own needs and goals. That scenario typically presents a bit of a challenge, but when doing this brand of “echo-reading” it’s a breeze!
No time to create helpful (and fun) Halloween activities for your language kids? You have one now! This week, I’ve created language activities around one of the “Scary Tales.”
On The Speech Link, Anna Vagin shared techniques for social learning using YouTube animations; love it. Then I asked her to share her favorite “therapy nugget.” Wow, it was really good. Then, I remembered my recent interview with Pat Mervine, and she said the same thing....
I love hearing my language-kids talk. But when we’re sitting there drilling-and-instilling past tense, and Johnny interjects a story about his trip to his grandma’s last weekend and says, “We drived to Atlanta last Saturday,” I wanna beat my head against the wall! So, what’s an SLP do?
Using jokes is a fun and beneficial way to build language. Following are therapy ideas on how to teach puns and riddles and why joke-therapy can benefit our language-kids. The following is primarily
It’s vitally important to laugh! It’s good for our health and happiness. Let’s face it, we all love to laugh! Sometimes funny things just happen in therapy. But, you might consider (if you haven’t already) a more direct approach. Use “jokes!” Use them as a weekly ritual, or as an all-out activity in your therapy.