You are a Social Detective Beginner App Review

I am always on the look out for some decent social skill materials to use when working with students. So, when I was asked to review the "You Are a Social Detective Beginner App" by the same people who make the Think Social! curriculum (which I love and use all the time) I had to give it a try.

Of course, I agreed to do this review at the beginning of the IEP season. I'm afraid I am way late in making my review. However, its now summer, and even though I'm at a year round school, I have more time on my hands than I did back in May.

So, I have been fairly disenfranchised by speech therapy apps as of late. I feel like there is a lot of apps thrown together real quick to make a quick buck. The last few app purchases I've made I've been disappointed with. To be honest, at first I thought that was what I was getting into when I started to look at this app. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

The app was meant to go with the You are a Social Detective Book by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke. It emphasizes the use of social "smarts" at home, in school and everywhere else. If you are already familiar with the Think Social curriculum then you'll already be very familiar with the concepts that this app teaches.

This app has quizzes to test your students social skill "smarts". I especially like the videos of real kids. There has been a lot of research done on using video modeling to teach social skills to students on the Autism Spectrum. I been to several training's where they have emphasized this. Students with Autism and Asperger's respond well to watching social skill videos. The short little videos during the quizzes are fantastic. 

Now, I tried to use this during therapy with some kids with social skill goals on their IEPs. One problem is that you can't access all the sections unless you have unlocked it with a your "Avatar". It doesn't lend itself well to group therapy in my opinion. It would be great if you were working one-on-one with a student or as supplement practice for home. This is something that parents can do with their kids at home to further generalize the information from the "You Are a Social Detective" book. 

However, the app costs $24.99, which might be a difficult sale for parents. For therapists, it would be well worth the price at least for the video quizzes. 

These guys have also created the Social Skill Builder app which I haven't had a chance to look at yet, but would love to hear from any of you if you like it or not. 

So, how are you using technology for social skills? Have you found something helpful in assisting students or at least augmenting your lessons?

 

Tasks Ideas for Visual attention, Left Neglect/Inattention

Portions of Janelle Barrett's student project continued...

Visual Inattention or Visual Neglect are such a bizarre phenomenon.  I remember when I was a beginner clinician and saw my first patient with left neglect.  It was hard to wrap my head around the fact that it's not a VISUAL problem.  The patient absolutely could not see things on the left, only because they were "not looking."  Totally blew my mind as I watched the patient struggle to find my eyes, bang into the wall on the left, and eat only the food on the right side of his plate.  The patient was just as baffled as I was (I mean, I had learned about this in school, but seeing it in real life was so wacky!)  Of course, left neglect is most common, but despite those non-believers, I HAVE seen true right-sided inattention or neglect as well!

People seem to make relatively quick progress in this area if they work really hard on it.

There has been some argument about whether or not the word "neglect" is truly correct, versus inattention, etc.  Call it what you want- but how do you attack it.  Here are some ideas from a few SLPs and SLP students.  The high- and low-level are all mixed together.  What about your ideas?  Leave me a comment!

Image courtesy of: cognitiveneuro.wordpress.com

• Of course I always sit to the patient's neglected side, and try to ask them to look at me all throughout the session.  
• I also ask staff and family to always sit to the neglected side
• I have their TV put on the left, or shift the bed around if needed so that they are looking to the left
• A couple of my patients have loved looking out their window or out into the hallway, so I have had the bed switched around so those things are on the left. 
• I will literally hold the patient's head to the left in severe cases (where they cannot sustain a left sided turn of the head and they instantly "sprinkler" back to the right or non-nelgected side).
• I put all therapy tasks on the neglected side (if the patient can do it)
• Cancellation and cross out tasks 
• For really severe cases this can be as simple as having two pictures on a page and having the patient find the one on the left
• Letter cancellation tasks (large or small print, full or part-page)
• Symbol cancellation can be even tougher.
• I think it's important to make sure the patient goes line by line, left to right. No jumping around.  That will not help them with reading in the future.
• Reading tasks
• Newspapers, magazine articles, large print if needed
• Can use colored line on side of neglect or inattention if needed
• Can use colored index card to follow lines of writing
• I usually have them follow along with their finger
• Can also number the lines if needed 
• My co-worker has patient follow along as she reads
• Writing tasks
• Keyboarding/typing tasks
• Web navigation
• Google searches
• Email
• Reading and typing
• Apps: 
• Dr. Ben
• Doodle Pro
• Little Things
• Reading and typing tasks on iPad
• Games: 
• Memory or concentration 
• Cooking tasks: keep necessary items on side of neglect
• Visual search tasks 
• Find all the similar symbols
• Where's Waldo
• I Spy 
• Fruit Ninja
• "Oops, you missed that bomb. It must have been on the left side!"
• Going for a walk or an outing 
• I'll have them look for things on the neglected side
• Post-its or pictures on the wall
• Hidden clues 
• Ask about details in the pictures on the wall, etc.
• Sometimes we place obstacles on the neglected side
  

• Having the patient read and follow a map
• We have really liked some of the tasks and worksheets in the book Focus on Function (among many other great cog books) and have used everything from check writing, to maps, to filling out forms, to reading a TV guide from this book.  
• Hide things in the drawers of the room (on the left side of the drawer (e.g., Where's your chap-stick?).
• Some of the Lumosity games are great (we have a staff log-in we can all use which has worked well.
• Tic-tac-toe
• Mazes
• There is a task we like that is hard to describe- it has a poem at the top, and then the poem below with many similar and extraneous words throughout.  We have the patient circle the correct words as they read along.  In the end you have the poem in order once again.
• Kitchen tasks 
• Have the patient find the ingredients or utensils they will need
• Have them search for safety problems (my OT co-worker sets up an awesome room full of hazards, including cords ready to trip someone, running water, a burner left on, a knife placed precariously, etc.) 

 Happy Left-Scanning!

Kristin

Review of Sanapsis app for People with Aphasia and Cognitive Deficits

I was recently given the opportunity to try out the Sanapsis app.  The app has picture naming cards, verb photo cards, cards to prompt questions and descriptions, sentence-building/unscrambling tasks, etc.  I want to tell you some of the exercises I think will be helpful to use with my aphasic patients.

Sanapsis App

My favorites:
Giving Instructions-- This is a unique task I haven't found in many other language apps.  It gives prompts such as, "Give instructions on how to give a dog a bath."  I get tired of picture and object description tasks for sentence and conversation elicitation.  This is new, and having it on a tablet device or smart phone seems to spice things up a bit in therapy as well.

Retell a Story-- I thought this was great, because every story contains humor in the punchline, and would allow for me to assess humor, abstract language skills, inferencing abilities in patients with higher-level cognitive deficits.  I will definitely be using this with some of my R CVA patients who need practice understanding subtleties.  Not to mention, it's a great memory exercise!

Organize a sentence-- This one (pictured above) requires the patient to put the sentence back in the correct order.  Some would be pretty tough for my aphasic patients, but could work really well for some of the cognitively-impaired patients who need to work on sequencing, or cognitive organization. 

It was obvious that some of the naming and description pictures and word choices were more European/UK, but it could make for interesting responses from the patients and provide an opportunity for them to take initiative (e.g., "I don't really know what that is!  Is it some sort of tool?") 

The app is about to come out with a new update including edits and many more pictures (they tell me it will have over 200 more words, and over 5000 more pictures).  They were also really great about wanting my feedback and suggestions.  Check it out at the app store!  (Not yet available at the Google Play Store.)

Kristin