I love blogging for networking, learning, and creative energy from peers across the United States. Their passion is assuredly contagious and their lesson plans have given me the ability to become a better therapist. My therapy approach is fun and functional, ensuring kids enjoy learning communication and life skills. Handcrafted materials acquired from peers empower my therapy approach and enable me to wear multiple hats. Let’s explore my personal life.
My Work-Life Balance
Besides having this rewarding career for nearly three decades, I live a blessed life as a wife and mom in Naperville, Illinois. I can honestly say that in all my years of practice, which I incidentally began as a speech-language assistant, I have never once questioned my career choice. I consider myself so lucky to be part of such a rewarding field.
Working privately gives me the luxury to be an important part of my son’s life. Our days are busy and I’m sure I’m not alone in this type of lifestyle. I was under this misguided impression that as I got older, things would slow down a bit. I could tell you how important it is to “seize the day”, but I’m sure you already know that given the times we are living in now. Instead, I will share my realistic approach to this motto: Stop and smile.
Stop and Smile
One day, when my son was around 8 years old, as we hurried downstairs, I paused at intervals to smile at him, cherishing our brief connections. We carried on like that for years. Simple, right? I encourage you to find someone in your life to stop and smile with every so often. Think about it, it may only take a couple minutes a year to brighten someone’s days.
In my journey as a therapist, I’ve found immense inspiration from fellow professionals across the U.S. Their creativity and dedication fuel my practice. With a fun and functional therapy approach, I aim to make learning enjoyable for children. While I wear many hats in my professional life, my roles as a wife and mom bring me the greatest joy. Privately practicing allows me to cherish moments with my son, underscoring the importance of seizing each day. One simple yet profound lesson I’ve learned is the power of stopping to share a smile. Cherishing those brief connections enriches our lives immeasurably. So, let’s all take a moment to spread a little brightness wherever we go.
Expected and Unexpected behaviors are terms from the Social Thinking program by Michelle Garcia Winner and Dr. Pamela Crooke. The authors explain that “Expected and Unexpected” terms replace referring to behaviors as “Appropriate and Inappropriate”. They postulated that teachers and caregivers rarely acknowledge “Appropriate” behaviors; rather, more emphasis is placed on the negative term “Inappropriate”. The latter insinuates disappointment and reprimanding, not teaching. In my experience, role-playing expected and unexpected behaviors is effective for teaching these skills to students.
You are a Social Detective
During my tenure in the school system, we frequently utilized the renowned social skills book: You are a Social Detective by Michelle Garcia Winner in our social skills groups. For the uninitiated, it starts with “smarts,” discussing our strengths, and then outlines expected school behaviors. The next part of the book gives examples of unexpected behaviors and discusses how these impact others’ perceptions of us. The authors released a second edition of You are a Social Detective in 2020, and it’s available digitally on Apple Books and Google Play.
Role Play
While working in schools, I collaborated with social workers for quick lunch social skills sessions, using the Social Detective book. With time constraints, we read during lunch, followed by role plays using slips of paper with expected or unexpected behaviors. I created some examples that you can get at this link.
I stored role play scenarios in a refurbished container covered in mustache duck tape, calling it “I Mustache You to Role Play.” Kids simply reached in the container and drew a paper to role play the expected or unexpected behavior. Overall, fourth graders loved this game for social skills. It was a great extension activity for You are a Social Detective.
For more information on Social Thinking and to view free video trainings for children, please visit this link.
Expanding Expression Tool (EET) by fellow Speech Pathologist, Sara L. Smith, is a dynamic, multi-sensory approach for improving oral language and writing for students in kindergarten through high school. There are many reasons why you should use expanding expression tool visuals both in school and home. Let’s take a closer look at the program and how I have incorporated it into my speech and language therapy practice.
Expanding Expression Tool Components
Just in case you have not seen an EET kit, here are the basic components:
First, you get the manual with the kit which includes five sections: introduction, general descriptions, additional prompts, organizers, and parent program. You will find baseline data sheets, worksheet activities for each descriptor bead, classroom prompts, student organizers, home activities, and much more in this manual.
Included in the kit are two sets of beads, a large one for classroom instruction and one small strand for individual use. The latter helps students become more independent with expressive language skills in a less conspicuous manner while still getting visual and tactile cues. Parents can purchase the smaller strand for home practice at this link. Basically, each bead represents a descriptor cue for target vocabulary and here is the breakdown:
Green=What Group does it belong to?
Blue=What does it Do? What is its Function?
Eyeball=What does it Look like?
Wood=What is it Made of?
Pink=What are its Parts?
White=Where can you Find it?
?=What Else do I know about it?
Also included in the kit are picture cards with familiar objects, which you can break out for immediate EET practice. Some of the cards include the EET coding, which is great for cuing students at their desk. A few of the other cards in this deck offer lesson plan ideas.
The foam dice in the kit are perfect for playing games. Just roll the dice and answer the color-coded question about the target object.
Expanding Expression Tools in Action
Years ago, I used EET with a private language client who was in the fourth grade and received special education programming. She attended private speech and language sessions at my practice, Naperville Therapediatrics, twice weekly for 60 minutes. In August 2013, language testing revealed limited vocabulary use, reduced sentence structure, and delayed comprehension. While she did very well during discrete learning trials, she struggled with retaining and recalling information. Her school special education team asked if I could help increase this student’s ability to use and comprehend vocabulary, especially homophones, so I researched the EET program to address these delays.
When I compared how this client responded at baseline to her responses while using the EET beads, she recalled a little more detail about each subject. Here is one before/ after example taken recently after having covered worksheets for the following: group, function, and “looks like.”
Tell me everything you know about Beluga Whales- Baseline response on 1/7/2014: “It has sharp teeth and of course it has to eat fish. Swallows fish. It is a carnivore too because it likes to eat meat. And it can make an echo. If it’s danger and it makes sound.”
Halfway through program on 3/7/2014:
Animals (ocean/sea)
Swims underwater; moves its head (modeled demonstration); eats fishes; uses echolocation
White and Brown
Bones
It has little teeth. They do not chew, they swallow.
See them at aquarium
Analysis
At baseline, she told me about it: group (carnivore), parts (teeth) and what it does (eats fish and echoes.) Using the EET beads, she added a few more details about the following: what it does (moves head, swims underwater), what it looks like (white and brown), made of (bones), and where you may see them (aquarium.) If we look at this data from a percentage standpoint, then she used 3/6 (50%) description points at baseline and 6/6 (100%) details with EET beads. She increased the number of details provided in three other samples too. Continued improvement was noted as we progressed through the workbook programming.
Expanding Expression Tool Seasonal Ideas
Since I’m a big fan of seasonal units and visual cuing, I thought it would be appropriate to take clip art and add lines to the image for EET description. Below are some of my ideas for each season/ holiday:
New Year’s party hat
Hot chocolate mug
Valentine cupcake
Basketball
Umbrella
Flower
Sun
Fireworks
Pail and shovel
Swimming pool
Leaf
Pumpkin
Turkey
Snowman
Christmas tree/ dreidel.
I am so appreciative of Sara’s efforts and hard work in designing this EET program. For details on using EET to improve writing, you can visit my guest post by Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan. If you would like more information about the EET program, then click on the title links below for descriptions and ordering details:
Delve into the deliciously effective world of food-themed speech and language therapy! From vocabulary expansion to articulation practice, discover how incorporating food can enhance engagement and communication skills in therapy sessions. In this blog post, I will explore creative activities, effective strategies, and the mouth-watering benefits of using food as a tool for speech and language development. Get ready to spice up your therapy sessions and satisfy your speech goals with a side of culinary fun!
Condiment Flashcards
I typically find die cuts like the ketchup and mustard ones pictured below at the Dollar Tree. These are a quick and easy way to create flashcards. I used the condiments ones to make an association memory game. In keeping with the theme, all the word pairs were food related. The burger cards were meant to be coasters, but I used them for retelling stories and sequencing tasks. I also kept extra picnic-themed paper plates and popcorn containers on hand for both decorative purposes and for use in sorting activities.
I Scream, You Scream
The FREE ice cream lesson pictured below came from Jenn at Crazy Speech World. She put together this fun noun and verb matching game for sentence construction. I edited some verbs to address irregular tense and picked up these mini decorative trays that reminded me of an ice cream parlor.
Popcorn
At the end of last school year, I had many requests to repeat a popcorn lesson that I found at Speech Time Fun. You can find this freebie that targets naming synonyms here. All my students especially loved using the elephant card that caused you to put back all the popcorn that you had collected during game play. I used my Dollar Tree popcorn buckets for students to collect their popcorn pictures.
Game Changers
I also had a couple games that I found at Job Lot in Massachusetts years ago. The one below targeted using social manners and it came with the adorable picnic basket and blanket. I could easily work on vocabulary and turn taking with this gem.
The other Job Let find was a pizza game that focused on listening skills. It came with the items pictured below plus an additional pizza in a box. The object was to follow directions by accurately placing tokens with pictures on them onto the pizza. If you followed directions accurately, then you moved ahead on the large pizza spatula board. So cute! Thoughts
TpT Materials
But wait, there’s more! I purchased one of the “Moore” bundles on Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) that included several food themed lesson plans all to benefit the therapists who lost supplies following a devastating tornado. First up, was from one of my all time favorite bloggers, Rose at Speech Snacks. Her donation to the bundle was a restaurant package that included a fun game board with cards, categorization drills, auditory processing activities, and using manners. Never fear, you can buy yours here!
Yet, another score from my TPT “Moore” bundle purchase came from, The Buckeye Speech Path. This ‘Build a Pizza’ activity was an open ended speech game that you can purchase here on TPT.
As you can see, I created a binder full of food lesson plans for this unit. The next one was a barrier game freebie from Carrie’s Speech Corner using a lunch tray and some rather healthy food choices too.
Last, but not least, I created an activity to build expressive language skills using a lunch box theme. I took pictures of some items inside a lunch box to clip on the outside handle. Students needed to first describe the pictured object and then reach into the box with their eyes closed and feel around for it.
Take Away Thoughts
In conclusion, incorporating a food theme into speech and language sessions can be a tasty and effective way to engage and motivate clients of all ages. From building vocabulary to improving articulation and fostering social skills, the possibilities are endless. By tapping into the universal love for food, speech therapists can create meaningful and memorable experiences that promote communication growth. So, why not add a pinch of culinary creativity to your therapy toolkit and watch your clients flourish with each delicious session? Let’s savor the joy of learning and communication, one bite at a time!
Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is a program that supports functional communication while encouraging expressive and receptive speech & language skills. Functional communication is demonstrating the ability to make one’s needs known effortlessly, immediately, and efficiently. This communication begins long before a child says his or her first words. For some children with autism, speaking is challenging but gesturing may not be, so PECS may be an effective way to introduce the foundation of communication.
PECS Supports Speech-Language Development
PECS is a well-established system that began in 1985 and it is based on B.F. Skinner’s 1957 book, Verbal Behavior. In Picture Exchange, a child is taught how to initiate communication by handing a picture to an adult. This process may or may not involve speaking; regardless, Picture Exchange does not ignore speech, rather it promotes both speech and language development. After the child places a picture in someone else’s hand, the communicative partner models speech & language sentence structure by naturally labeling objects/ actions. A sample exchange may look like this:
Child: Retrieves, then hands a picture to a communication partner.
Partner: “Book! Billy says, I want to read a book. Let’s read this book.”
Child: After hearing the word book may naturally imitate a sound/word/phrase/sentence.
In the above example, the communicative partner uses a natural approach by modeling language that mirrors conversational speech as opposed to telling the child to “say” the word book. Communication is not about telling each other what words to say next. By handing the picture of a desired object, the child has communicated his wants. We no longer need to guess and navigate frustrations. Instead, we have a teachable moment to work on enhancing speech articulation and sentence length.
Another way that PECS supports language development is through teaching clients to differentiate among picture choices. Being able to distinguish between a number of options demonstrates that the child is using his receptive comprehension skills. Through PECS training, he has learned to attach meaning to the images and can make selections with ease.
Caregiver Support
PECS is not something that children can learn in school or private practice speech sessions and then generalize. In fact, the program is ineffective unless practiced in multiple settings with a variety of communication partners using an array of reinforcements. Here are some specific roles and responsibilities of caregivers with regards to PECS:
Offering suggestions for tangible motivators that will encourage their child to participate in PECS
Providing an extra set of hands to prompt the child for specific actions during training (i.e., help pick up the picture, physically guide towards a communication partner)
Carrying over practice of techniques at home/ grandparents/ extracurricular activities
PECS Phases
Picture Exchange is taught in six phases. The process begins in the same manner regardless of age; however, older clients may move through training stages faster. Throughout the training, both communication partners and those physically assisting the child must remain silent. This sounds simple, but it is much harder than you may think.
PECS is a communication system where the child starts the conversational exchange by performing an action to make his needs known. When we start asking questions or using verbal directions to instruct the child, then we are no longer working on picture exchange. So, a communication partner asking, “What do you want?”, has started the exchange, not the child. If the partner verbally instructs the child to, “Get the picture” or “Bring it to me,” then the child may rely on this cue for future exchanges.
PECS Phase One
The goal for the first phase is to teach the client to initiate or start a communicative exchange by picking up a visual, reaching toward a partner, and releasing that picture into the partner’s hand. We do this by having the child sit in close proximity to a communication partner while a second adult sits behind the child. At first, the helper sitting behind the child may need to guide the child’s arm through each step. PECS uses a “first one’s free” approach by observing the child’s interest in a food or toy within reach. If the object is of interest, then we start teaching the “nature of communication” through the following sequence:
Pick up picture —> Reach towards communication partner —> Release picture
Once that picture hits the communication partner’s hand, then that reward must happen immediately! No need to wait until the child says a word or answers a question. Throughout this phrase, you will want to introduce different communication partners with a variety of identified rewards, fading physical supports as indicated.
PECS Phase Two
In phase two, we teach distance and persistence with the end goal being to have the child gain someone’s attention by bringing a picture or communication book to locate the communication partner in another room. This phase can take a long time to achieve. Be patient, stay silent, physically assist when needed and your child will progress. The four training steps in this phase are as follows:
Repeat the “first one’s free” approach to assure that it interests him. If so, then place a picture of that item on the child’s cover of his communication book that houses all of the identified reinforcements. The physical prompter can assist the child in removing, reaching, and releasing the picture as needed.
The communication partner should start slowly moving away from the child and gradually increase this distance by inches, feet, then yards. The physical prompter may step in if needed. If the child drops the picture along the way, then the prompter picks it up and brings it to the last successful step the child was able to complete. In this case, that would be back on the communication book cover. Again, there is no verbal prompting in this process, just physical guidance.
Once the child can reliably and independently travel to a communication partner 5-8 feet away from the child, then increase the distance between the child and his book. Eventually, you will want to designate a location in the room for the book. Every location should have a spot that is within a child’s reach, but not necessarily right next to him at all times.
Assess and eliminate any additional prompts. Your speech pathologist will guide you for behaviors to monitor like, showing an expectant look on your face as you wait for your child to retrieve a picture.
PECS Phase Three
By phase three, we work on teaching the client to choose a picture amiss all pictures in his communication book. At this point in the training, we are trying to create many opportunities for spontaneous requesting during daily functional activities. By this point, the child has learned the “nature of communication” and can independently find his communication book and partner to make requests. Up until now, we have been placing just one picture on the child’s book cover. Now, we will start the process of teaching picture discrimination through these steps:
Discriminating between a highly preferred and a distracter picture. For example, you may pair candy (something he really likes) with a spoon (something he would not want over candy.) During this step, both pictures will be varied along with positioning on the child’s book.
Next, you will work on discriminating between two reinforcing pictures and gradually add more than two choices.
The final step is for the child to look inside his book for a specific picture.
PECS Phase Four
In phase four, we work at the sentence level by teaching clients to construct and exchange a strip of paper with a sentence on it to make requests. This sentence strip will adhere to the bottom of the child’s communication book for easy access. You will begin with simple sentences like one picture that indicates: “I want” and the other representing the child’s reinforcement. This phase progresses to having a child construct a compound sentence like: “I want” + “object” + “and” + “object”, then sentences with attributes like:
color: I want red candy.
size: I want small ball.
shape: I want round cookie.
position: I want doll in box.
body parts: I want Mr Potato Head arm.
temperature: I want cold water.
speed: I want fast dance.
texture: I want bumpy chips.
quantity: I want 6 gummies.
PECS Phase Five
Phase five works on responding to a question while maintaining requesting. Up until this point in PECS, the communication partner refrains from initiating interactions by sitting quietly. During phase five, we are continuing to work on encouraging the child to initiate and make requests while occasionally responding to more questions posed by communication partners. This helps expand communication turns in conversations to make discussions longer.
PECS Phase Six
The final phase six works on helping the child learn to make spontaneous comments about the world around him. This phrase begins by placing a picture image of “I see” on the cover of the child’s communication book and moving the “I want” image to a storage page inside the book. Some suggested activities to pair with training commenting include:
Containing items in a mystery bag and then commenting on one object at a time as it is pulled out of the bag.
Looking through a photo album from the child’s home.
Watching a video of a favorite book on You Tube
The entire training period for PECS varies for each individual and is dependent on ability level and amount of practice time in both the clinical and home settings. Speech pathologists trained in PECS have resources for trouble shooting, so do not hesitate to talk with your child’s therapist if you need help with carryover.
Are you looking for a fun and functional DIY games to play with kids? I can promise you that my seasonal category games will exceed your expectations. Using bags and items you have around the house, you can quickly create an electronic free way to engage with your child and foster language skills.
MOM’S PURSE
My love for bagging up objects started with this fun activity that I found on Make Learning Fun during Mother’s Day 2012. Basically, you play a guessing game about items typically found in mom’s purse. It was a HUGE hit with preschoolers and middle school students during the spring season, and it was easily adaptable. All you need to do is search your home for a variety of items that are typically found in a mom’s purse. I purchased most of my items at the Dollar Tree, bag included!
After your search for objects is over, take a picture or make a computer generated one for each item in the bag. Then print, hole punch, and clip all pictures to your purse for safe keeping. During the game, children take turns using just their hands to feel inside the bag for the picture target. I like to set a timer for one minute to keep the game moving along. Older children can use descriptive words to talk about what item they are looking for while younger ones can reach in and search while you provide descriptors. Here are some of the many speech and language goals that can be incorporated into this activity:
articulation practice at the word/ phrase/ sentence level
describing objects by function
discussing objects by shape/ size/ textures
using slow, smooth fluent speech to talk about object features
answering “why” questions about various bag contents
BEACH/POOL BAG
You can create a seasonal category game for the summer months too. All you need to do is grab your pool or beach bag, which may already have plenty of items packed in it for the summer, and take a picture of each item. Then, using contact paper, laminate the pictures and hole punch the stack. You can use a round clip to attach the pictures to the handle of the bag.
Now, it’s time for some fun! Following the cards in sequential order, have children take turns reaching into the bag to feel for the item on their picture. Describe the item by size, shape, texture and more, prompting children to use descriptive words. My middle schoolers loved revisiting the guessing game after enjoying the “Mom’s Purse” activity during spring.
If you want to work on following descriptive directions, you can ask your children to locate the above items given clues, and then play the seek and find game later. Below are some clues you can provide for items like the ones pictured above:
Find something made of plastic that helps us see underwater.
Get something in a hard can that protects our skin outside from the sun.
Find some small, bumpy treasures that we brought home from the beach.
Get the soft, large thing that dries us off.
Find three plastic things we can play with in the water.
LUNCHBOX
Since it’s harder to ask kids to reach into such a small space like a lunchbox and feel around for things, I created some “What am I” guessing cards. Grab your level 1 card deck here. If you are looking for something a bit more challenging, then snag your level 2 rhyming card deck at this link.
The contents of my lunchbox included: water bottle, spoon and fork, sandwich container, Ziploc bag, straw, note, and a napkin. Once kids guess the object, have them search the lunchbox to retrieve the match. I also took pictures of all objects in case I want to use this as a matching picture to object task for my preschool kids. This is a perfect, fun game for your “Back to School” lesson planning and a great way to recycle your child’s former lunchbox! Enjoy!!
CHRISTMAS STOCKING
I replaced typical gifts in a seasonal game with mini objects targeting speech sounds or vocabulary to enhance expressive skills. For suggestions and sources, see my post.
Given the number of targets that you may use with this game, I typically forego creating pictures as I have with my other guessing game bags. Think of it this Christmas activity as a sensory bin without the box. For articulation practice, clients can pick one item at a time from the bin and say the word 3-5 times. Language clients can describe the item retrieved, answer questions about it, or use the target in a sentence.
For a dynamic language activity, gather a stable poster board, 12 envelopes, and small paper pieces. That is all you need to make your own Jeopardy game. Integrating the popular game Jeopardy into speech therapy sessions offers an engaging way to enhance question-asking and answering skills.
I like to mimic the real game by sorting answers into increasingly difficult categories with more points earned for the most challenging questions. I also use four categories of “PEOPLE”, “THINGS”, “PLACES”, and “TIME” to coincide with the ever popular “WHO”, “WHAT”, “WHERE”, and “WHEN” questions. You can make up your own stimulus or take them from any therapy manual. Regardless of the source, use those small pieces of paper to write the answers and then place each paper going from easiest to hardest in their corresponding category envelope. That’s it. The whole project should take no more than 30 minutes to create!
Foster Asking & Answering Questions
Once you have the poster board with envelopes attached, you can always change the categories or even make the game reflect seasonal topics. Before we play the game, I spend a few sessions working on the following: matching questions to appropriate answers; asking “WH” questions; using good manners as though you are on a real TV show; and turn taking. You may need to use some paper bags during training with the category names and starter words to questions written across the bag.
Often, my groups have included several students or even classrooms with children who have varying ability levels; therefore, I always provide one point if the student remembers to use a polite question such as, “Mrs. Cote, may I please have ____ for ___ points?” I typically have students respond in the form of a question after I read their answer, but you can adapt this game to best meet goals for students on your caseload. I have been playing this game for years and it has proven to be a real crowd pleaser!
Given our busy, “frenzied” schedules, I thought that I would make your lives a bit easier by creating some answer cards for you! Each row represents statements for increasingly challenging answers starting with level one and working up to level three. You can grab, print, and cut yours at the links below:
As the winter chill settles in, it’s the perfect time to cozy up with some winter-themed literacy activities! Whether you’re a speech pathologist looking for engaging classroom resources or a parent eager to enhance your child’s reading skills at home, this winter literacy post (featured in ASHA 1/10/13) has you covered.
Exploring winter literacy with my elementary clients has been a delightful journey, inspired by fellow bloggers and their creative lesson plans. During a winter break, I crafted my own engaging lessons, pairing seasonal books with practical activities. Organizing these books can enhance thematic learning experiences and streamline access to resources for speech and language therapy sessions. For more details about my unique storing system, read my organization post.
Tracks in the Snow
Tracks in the Snow by Wong Herbert Yee suits 1st and 2nd graders. It aids in teaching irregular past tense verbs. I decided to create a list using sentences with present tense verbs from the story. Kids take turns changing verbs to past tense, earning animal track cards or tokens for correct answers. The person with the most tracks or tokens wins! You can grab your list here for Tracks in the Snow:
The Missing Mitten Mystery
My next book, The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg is a funny story about a little girl who retraces her steps outside in search of a missing mitten. I found this book by Scholastic for a quarter at my local library sale! Moreover, I needed a lesson for some 3rd graders that focused on simple comprehension questions following a short reading, and this book fit the bill! If you can find this book at your local library or bookstore, then you can use these comprehension questions!
In the Snow: Who’s Been Here?
Another score at the library sale was, In the Snow: Who’s Been Here? by Lindsay Barrett George. I highly recommend borrowing or purchasing this book because each page gives clues about a winter animal that has crossed the trail in the woods just prior to the children’s walk. Great for vocabulary building and also for answering who/what questions!!
The Hat
The Hat by Jan Brett follows Hedgie the hedgehog as he gets a sock stuck on his prickles and faces the curiosity of other animals. As the story unfolds, readers discover how Hedgie’s predicament turns into a whimsical adventure. If you have not seen the FREE templates at www.makelearningfun.com that go along with the stories, The Mitten and The Hat both by Jan Brett, then you should follow this link to take a look!
Owl Moon
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen depicts a young girl and her father as they embark on a magical journey into the woods on a moonlit night. Together, they search for owls, experiencing the wonder and quiet beauty of nature. I found some great worksheets for this award winning story at this blogger’s TpT site.
Addendum 1/3/2013
After borrowing Katy and the Big Snow, I crafted a vocabulary lesson plan, prompted by a comment on this post. Follow this link for complete details.
One vocabulary area that seems to challenge many is: providing two or more different definitions for multiple meaning words. Targeting multiple meaning words over a few weeks isn’t enough; I’ll focus on them throughout the school year for measurable gains. So, I developed word banks for monthly calendars based on a seasonal activity, event, or category. I found that asking students to provide a definition relative to the theme was very helpful.
Lesson Plan
At the beginning of every session, each student would provide one definition for the day’s target word. Every Friday, I wrote “Review Day” on the calendar so students could pick whatever word they wanted from the past week. Sometimes, there were small candy incentives for accurately providing at least two, different definitions. Below are word banks you can use to make your own calendars.
I was given each of these apps so I could put them to the test and offer a first person, hands on review. This list of 10 apps that stand the test of time is meant to guide other educators and caregivers towards the apps that I have found to be most beneficial, not only when my son was younger, but also at work with clients on my pediatric, speech-language caseload. The ranking is in no particular order of preference.
Conversation Builder
Conversation Builder Teen ($29.99) by Mobile Education Store: I cannot say enough about this dynamic app that supports improving social skills for teenagers! I have used it with middle school clients diagnosed with autism. To say this app is a must have for anyone needing support with pragmatic skills would be a HUGE understatement!!
Tense Builder
Tense Builder ($9.99) by Mobile Education Store: This is another, fantastic app by Kyle Tomson. It addresses every, possible verb tense in a bright, entertaining way that the first graders in my life really enjoy. Users watch a short cartoon video and then match the appropriate picture to the target sentence. For a closer look at this gem, head to my detailed post here.
Syntax City
Syntax City ($19.99) by Smarty Ears: Great app that targets a good variety of syntax in a fun, categorical way. Visit several different locations in the city and earn prizes by choosing the correct word to complete sentences. Motivating, educational, and fun for my young, elementary students. I have more information and images to see of this app in my detailed review post.
Rainbow Sentences
Rainbow Sentences ($9.99) by Mobile Education Store:
The object of this game is to unscramble words to form grammatically correct sentences. It offers multiple settings and various levels of difficulty. I personally like how the mixed up words maintain the correct punctuation and capitalization, which act as clues for word ordering while offering visual reminders to use these techniques while writing too! Children earn pieces of a puzzle by answering several questions accurately. I provide even more details and images in my post: Constructing Grammatically Correct Sentences with Rainbow Sentences app.
Preposition Builder
Preposition Builder ($7.99) by Mobile Education Store:
What can I say, I’m a Mobile Education Store Fan! They cover all the speech language therapy bases!! This app teaches prepositions in related groups. Once you successfully fill-in the correct prepositions in all sentences, you unlock an opportunity to watch a short, animated video clip.
Articulation Station
Articulation Station (.99-$5.99) by Little Bee Speech: The app itself comes free with one target sound, /p/, and then you purchase other sounds at various prices. Speech pathologists will want the entire collection, while parents need only purchase sound targets applicable for their children. No need to dig for flashcards because this puts them all in the palm of your hand. You can work at word, phrase, sentence, or story levels and set sound targets for all positions in words. In addition to the flashcards, there are memory games built into every sound target, making carryover practice easy and fun!
Expressive
Expressive ($59.99) by Smarty Ears apps: This is an affordable augmentative and alternative communication speech generating app primarily used for individuals who are minimally verbal. For complete details and images, please see my post Expressive by Smarty Ears Apps- An Affordable AAC app.
Expressive Builder
Expressive Builder ($9.99) by Mobile Education Store: I use this app to address building grammatically and syntactically correct sentences. The levels of play make this a nice tool for teaching and assessing speech and language skills!
Custom Boards
Custom Boards (PRICELESS) by Smarty Ears apps: Incredible, comprehensive, amazing, dynamic – these are just some of the descriptive words that came to describe this app! Basically, Custom Boards allows you to create whatever you need for children of all ages using any of the 35,000 “Smarty Ears” symbols, your own library photos, or Google search images. You can edit the text font, image size, and change the background colors for images to help them stand out more and create just about anything from Bingo games to daily routine visual schedules.
Little Stories
Little Stories ($59.99) by Little Bee Speech: It is impossible for me to tell you everything about this app in one paragraph, so I want you to download the free version and sample three stories for yourself. You can target speech, language, and literacy in this dynamic app that contains 82 stories at tiered reading levels. Take a look at what you get with each story:
target sound, /p/, and then you purchase other sounds at various prices. Speech pathologists will want the entire collection, while parents need only purchase sound targets applicable for their children. No need to dig for flashcards because this puts them all in the palm of your hand. You can work at word, phrase, sentence, or story levels and set sound targets for all positions in words. In addition to the flashcards, there are memory games built into every sound target, making carryover practice easy and fun!
