MAY IS BETTER SPEECH AND HEARING MONTH

 

Better Speech and Hearing Month is a time to raise public awareness, knowledge, and understanding of the various forms of communication disorders including those of hearing, speech, language, and voice. Speech and language disorders take many forms such as articulation, voice, stuttering, and receptive and expressive language difficulties. These impairments may be learning based, acquired, or the result of accidental injury or illness at any age. Speech and language disorders can limit academic achievement and social adjustment within their educational setting.

As a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) I work to prevent, identify and treat various forms of communication impairments including speech, language, voice, stuttering, hearing, and related disorders.

To celebrate this month, my speech and language students will be creating speech graffiti in the main hallway at school to promote awareness of communication disorders. Furthermore, each Monday in the month of May, I will be posting examples of DIY promotional materials and/or resources for parents and teachers to learn more about speech/language development and communication disorders. 

 

Explain Everything -- A Handy Tool for Speech Therapy

In the month of March I decided to try my hand at a new app called Explain Everything. This tool allows you to create a slideshow including narration, photos and videos. Two of my fluency students used it to research what stuttering is, the different types of disfluencies, as well as strategies used to produce smooth speech. Here is one of the presentations we created:

All About Stuttering

 

April Home Practice for Speech/Language Students

Thanks to the SLPs Fairy Godmother and If I Only Had Superpowers for the following April Home Practice Activities.  These activities can be used for students working on improving both their expressive and receptive language skills or articulation skills.  Language students can answer the questions as stated while the articulation students can answer the questions using their target speech sounds (each student should be able to tell you which sound we have been working on in group each week).

April Calendar
 

 

 April - Week by Week



 

Speech 101

Ahhh.... winter break is over.  Or should I say WAHHHH!

Now that we are back in the swing of things, I thought it would be a perfect time to share a few resources for parents and classroom or specialist teachers to better understand vocabulary in the world of speech/language.

The first was created by www.msjocelynspeech.com and the

second by www.carriescorner.blogspot.com. 

 

Link:  https://www.box.com/s/24o58vj6z08h04rfdn0k

 

  

 

Link:  https://www.box.com/s/4fwwvd7q52h407l6tzo2

A Little Lesson in Voice Use

One of my favorite things to do during my ACT week (indirect) each month is to visit classrooms and conduct mini lessons on a variety of topics in the speech and language world.  One of the classroom teachers' favorites is the lesson I provide on voice use and projection.  One of my teacher friends has been "talking me and this lesson up" to SLPs in other districts recently which has resulted in SLPs connecting with me to share this particular lesson.

I present the lesson via Notebook for SmartBoards with some opportunity for interactive activities for the students, but have transferred it to  PowerPoint since it is used more universally.



 

Link:  https://www.box.com/s/ulz6iis999tymt9qvmrh

The Coughing Sound = K

Lucky Me!  We are nearing the halfway point of the school year and over the past two weeks I have been fortunate enough to celebrate a few "graduations," as well as add several new students to my caseload.  A few of the newbies are what us SLPs like to call "fronters."  This just means the students use a fronted tongue position when producing sounds, so a 'k' comes out as a 't' or a 'g' comes out a 'd.'  It can be very difficult for these kiddos to find and use accurate tongue placement in the back of their throat for the /k/ and /g/ so here is another great resource from Heard in Speech. 

 

Link:  https://www.box.com/s/8czlo3j43zecq307sodf

Tips and Tricks for /S/ and /L/

Parents,

Here are a few handy handouts to help your child practice and you monitor his/her productions of the /s/ and /l/ sounds at home.

 

Link:  https://www.box.com/s/r2g36nzjkherwebr0t37



Link:  https://www.box.com/s/ioyeb71sjmz1zoekbxma