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?

 

On the Flip Side

So, the other day I got a little nudge.

Kristin got her cousin to send me a hint. Where's the educational SLP? Isn't he suppose to post things as well? His he permanently stuck writing progress reports and IEPs?

Well, yes. He is.

So, I am going to blame the same things I always blame... parenthood and netflix. What can you do?

Anyway, I wanted to talk briefly about my experience on the flip side. What is it like to be a parent with a child who has special needs, at least from my perspective.

My son, Logan has always been a bit rambunctious and a little behind his sisters when it comes to many developmental milestones. Yet we didn't right away recognize that he might have special needs. Many people had told us that boys are more difficult than girls. We just assumed that they were very right. Once our little boy became mobile then he learned real quick how to get into just about everything. He also demonstrated many characteristics that were similar to students with ASD. At the time he was very echolalic, he wouldn't socialize with others, he couldn't handle any changes to his routine, and he got hyper-focused (obsessed) on particular items or topics.

Sometimes parents get a blindside to their own children which was definitely the case for us. It wasn't till our child was old enough to go to the children's class at our church when we began to realize that our child wasn't like the other children his age. He was the only kid who couldn't sit still during class. We had the "problem child", the kid that people tend to question what the parents are doing. Were the parents doing any discipline in the home at all? Don't get me wrong, most of the people at my church were very nice about it, trying their best to help Logan participate in primary
. Yet, we knew that something was wrong, or at least suspected.

I called up my sister-in-law and point blank asked her, "Do you think my son has a disability?"

She replied, "I would never say anything negative about your son. You know we all love him, but to be honest, none of my kids were ever that hard."

I felt like I was kicked in the stomach. What did I do wrong? I was suppose to know how to fix children who had problems. I was suppose to be a better father. Did we not give him enough attention? Were we not consistent enough in our disciple? What did we do wrong? My wife took it equally hard. She felt that everybody hated our son. She felt that people thought we were bad parents when he was melting down in public over one thing or another. My wife also has Special Education background. So, she also felt the double guilt that I was feeling. Not only were we bad parents in our minds, we were also bad professionals.

Its easy to tell parents that it isn't their fault that their child has special needs, but its difficult as parents to listen and believe that simple truth. That nagging feeling of "what if I just did this differently?" clings to our minds. It's difficult to shake off.

We had Logan tested. The local elementary school's preschool team gave him a variety of assessments including developmental, cognitive, expressive and receptive language, social, etc. We had to wait even longer for special Autism testing.

Several labels were thrown around willy nilly. I started to realize why first person speech was so important. We could tell who saw our son as a disability first and who saw him as a little boy first. It was a huge difference to us. Parents are a lot more perceptive than you might think. They can tell if you really care about their child or not. It makes a big difference to have people working who want the absolute best for your child, people who will look at their strengths as well as their weaknesses. I found also that I didn't care about the label; it seemed much more important to other people.

This experience has completely changed how I see my profession and how I interact with students and with parents.

There is much more I could write about this, but frankly I need to get back to my family.

My bad

I'm sitting in a training about resources for SLPs on the web and I see my blog as one of the "home grown" resources. Instantly I feel a ping of guilt for having neglected my blog for so long. This year has been fun and very busy, but I want to get back into sharing therapy ideas, reviewing apps, and so forth.

So, please... don't go any where

Of course I might be hanging out on pinterest or twitter.

have a good one

~bob

App Review: Speech with Milo: Verbs

Hey there, this is Bob.

I'm not sure if you guys are ever know who's writing when you first start reading one of our blog posts. I guess the topic is often a dead give a way. You're never going to see me writing about swallowing or aphasia. If the post is about working with preschool or elementary kids you can almost be sure that its me, but the confusion might still be there. So, just in case... this is Bob.

Along with our iPhone/iPad app lists I wanted to do some app reviews, and I have some catching up to do.

I wanted to start with a nice little app called Speech with Milo: Verbs. It costs $2.99 on iTunes, one of the cheaper speech therapy apps on the market. It's a universal app that will work on both the iPhone and the iPad (dear app creators, we love universal apps, please do more!). Its geared for younger children, from toddlers to 1st grade. Yet, I've tried it with 4th graders and it was surprisingly well received.

The concept is simple, Milo (the mouse) demonstrates actions for the kids. There are short little animations for each action word. It's extremely easy for the child to navigate themselves, sometimes they switch to the next action word before you would like them to though. Milo ends each action with a "ta da", he's very proud of himself after all.

There are great ideas in the therapist and parent instructions. You can use this to help teach vocabulary or grammar. I love it for grammar, its easy to target different syntax components. If you are working on present progressive you ask, "What is Milo doing?". If you are working on past tense you can ask, "He's all done. What did Milo do?". You can pick and choose which words you would like to work on in the options. And you can turn the music off (I wasn't a big fan of the music).

 

The animations are engaging, they keep the kids attention much better than action cards do. I can keep preschoolers on task for a whole session with this app! I have also found that its hit with my students with autism. If you are doing any language therapy with you kids and you have an iPhone, iPodtouch, or iPad then this is a must buy, especially since the price is less than a value meal.

The creators of this app have recently released an app specifically for prepositions. I have yet to get my hands on that one, but if its anything like this app then its probably well worth it.

You can learn more about Speech with Milo at their webpage.

Are there any apps out there that you would like us to review? Email us at pathologicallyspeaking (at) gmail (dot) com.

Language Therapy using Dropbox

I think we’ve already gotten to the point that we can agree that the iphone and/or ipad can be useful in therapy. There are numerous apps that you can use with more coming everyday. If you don’t have one of the devices, I would strongly suggest you look into it. Yes, there are great in therapy, but there are other ways they can be useful as well. You can keep track of your schedule with them, set alarms, use voice recorders, etc, etc. There are endless possibilities.

What I wanted to write about today is about a nice little trick you can do with your iphone/ipad for therapy that might not have occurred to you.

I use my ipodtouch for articulation therapy all the time now, but not so much for language therapy. Well, there are language therapy apps out there. I love the kindergarten.com apps for vocabulary and conversation for my younger students. I also often times use precentally to help me keep track of data when I’m doing student directed play therapy, and I just need some place to keep data. That’s what I use on my device for language therapy, but I know there is a lot more out there available. I'm not going to get into listing them all in this post, but if you look up speech language therapy apps on google or in itunes you are going to find a lot of things you can sort through.

One of the problems with the language therapy apps out there is that they rarely do exactly what I would like. Recently, I had a thought as to how to make language therapy material on your iPhone or iPad very easily. And guess who much it will cost you. Nothing! It’s free! Can you believe it!

It’ll take some set up, but if it’s worth it to you to have therapy materials on you so you can use it on the fly, then its worth it. Now you have to still create the materials  or the ability  to make them. This is simple enough if you have Boardmaker, Writing with Symbols, or even a regular old word processor. Any software that you can program and insert pictures will do.

So, say you want to make a simple picture of an apple. I like to use google image search (but be careful how you word things, you never know what might come up).



Now you've found your perfect apple picture. In a word file I inserted the picture and labeled it.



At which point I then saved the word file to "My Documents" in my Dropbox folder (I'll get into dropbox a little more here in a second). Then I was able to pull this up on my iPodtouch (I'll get a picture of the iPad on here once I can get my hands on one).





















Okay, to get started with this plan you need to sign up for Drop Box (click here for a link to it). Don’t worry its free. Dropbox is an automatic backup software that syncs with whatever computer you’ve install it on. So, if I have dropbox on my work computer, I save some Boardmaker boards that I’ve been working on then it will automatically be saved on my home computer (where I also have drop box installed). The second I come home I can pull up the same file and continue to work. Any computer you have it installed will automatically sync those files. You could also have it on your lap top, and there is an app on the iPhone and iPad. Essentially, it’s like having a virtual flash drive with you on the computers you use. My wife and I use it all the time. It’s great for moving items over that wouldn’t fit in a standard email. You can also share folders with other individuals. We share a folder with my mother-in-law so that we can exchange pictures of our children with her. We just drop them in the dropbox folder and the automatically start uploading on my wife’s parents’ computer as well (in the shared folder).

You can get up to 2 gigabytes for free. They will try to sell you upgrades, but in my humble opinion, it’s not worth it.

When you save a file from your computer it will then be visible on your iPhone/iPad when you are connected to the internet whether that be via wi-fi or by 3G. Now, you can select a file as “favorite” and then you would be able to have access to that file while being off line, which is an important feature for those of us with iPads and iPodtouchs who don’t always have the luxury of having instant internet. Why the whole world doesn’t have wi-fi coverage everywhere, I just don’t know. Come on people, the internet is a basic human right! Well, maybe not.

Anyway, you cannot edit files that are on your iPad/iPhone, only view them. But that’s okay, that’s really all that I want anyhow. So, you have your friendly boardmaker file and/or your very nice word processor with access to google image searches. You can put a word list, a social skills story, sequencing pictures, basic concepts, or whatever you want. Now save these items to your drop box, go onto your iphone/ipad and selected the items as favorite. Now you can pull those up on your mobile device anyway you want. You now have your own custom made mobile therapy materials on your iphone/ipad. Not that you could have easily printed those pages out and carried them with you where ever you went, but I’m all about taking less therapy materials around with me if I can help it.

Some of the software out there save to a very specific format that dropbox can’t read in the iphone/ipad app (I’m looking at you boardmaker). There is a very easy solution. There are numerous PDF creators out there. PDF files are documents that adobe acrobat readers can read. It’s a pretty universal format that is used frequently, and dropbox does recognize it on their iphone app. The way most PDF file creator software works is simple, just print the document, but selected the PDF creator as your printer and instead of printing the file, you save it as a PDF file somewhere on your computer, preferably your dropbox. Click here for a list of software programs that can create PDF files.

Well, there you have it a cheap way of toting language therapy material around with you, actually this could work with any different types of therapy. You make specific word lists for articulation therapy. You could make fluency therapy material mobile so you could get out of your office to do generalization activities. You could make board games (if you bring your own dice) with you to the preschool room. Granted I think this would be more effective on the iPad than anything else. And, yes I still don’t have an iPad, but I got my headstart teacher on to this. I don’t really think she’s seen the full potential, but then she stays in one room unlike us speechies.

So, go ahead and try this and tell me what you think. Let me know if you have any questions about getting it all set up.

Half Way, Hang in There

It’s around half way through the school year. They come and go so quickly, it’s unbelievable. The students grow up so quickly; they are in fact a few inches taller now. You probably have had more progress reports to write, or will soon. Those are always a joy. If you are anything like me, you likely have a few straggling referrals if not more. And the IEPs… Even though you are half way through the school year, you are likely only 1/3 of the IEP meetings that you need to hold (with a third of those due just in the month of May – how do we always end up doing that???).

Even though you have so much left to do, you are half way through another year. Boy they seem be getting shorter every year, don’t they? They sure do for me. Time just keeps speeding up and it feels like my grip on the handle bars has been loosening every year. I just keep on trying to hold on for dear life.

I have not been the best blogger as of late. I don’t know if I just got burned out of writing during the month of November, or what? But I’m going to try to be better to at least check in, write something somewhat useful/interesting once a week (my late New Year resolution). We’ll see if I can stick to it. I also want to attempt to spend time improving myself as a therapist. I think I have the tendency to get bogged down so much with paper work that I don’t give myself enough time read the journals or try to learn new therapy techniques.

Sometimes I believe it’s good that the New Year begins in the middle of our school year. It gives us an opportunity to set some goals right when we need them, when we’re in the thick of things. So, I give you all permission to write some late New Year resolutions before the end of January. Maybe you want to be better at keeping on top of the paper work or you want to improve your fluency therapy skills. Whatever, just take the opportunity if you haven’t already to think of someway that you can improve as a therapist.

And hang in there, did I mention that we’re half way to summer?

What a long crazy trip its been

Well, again I don’t know if you missed me or not, but I’m back and it has been one heck of a ride. I’m sure that there are some of you out there that have no idea what I’m talking about.

I decided to take up the challenge from National Novel Writing Month otherwise known as NaNoWriMo  to write a novel in one month, thirty days, with at least 50,000 words.

I started the first day, just me and my computer starring at each other, no ideas were coming to mind, nothing was flowing, but then I started typing and I just kept going. The story kind of created itself as I went along. I had to have plenty of brain storming sessions and discussions with my wife, but the story seemed to come out the best when I just kept writing. When I just let is flow and gush out. Maybe gushing wasn’t the best word right there.

Did I make it? Did I finish the challenge of 50,000 words? Well, those of you who follow me on twitter already know.

Yes and no.

I ended up with a word count yesterday of 83,100 words, so yes, according to NaNoWriMo I made it. And no, my story had not yet been concluded yet. That was my main goal, to have a completed first draft of my novel. Having had written over 150 word document pages means I have quite a bit of this novel written. Yet every good book needs three components, a beginning, a middle, and an end. Mine seems to be lacking that last part. I’m not quite sure how it’s going to get there, but I’ll keep trudging along, just not at the same crazy intense pace that I have been doing for the last 30 days. I told my wife yesterday that she has permission to nag me to finish this. I give you all the same permission.

Speaking of my wife, she is invested. She deserves me to finish this silly project of mine because bless her heart she has read every single word that I’ve written. Yup, every single word, if you can believe it. And not only that, she’s let me write while taking the kids, doing dishes, putting up with me talking about nothing else, etc, etc. Yes, my wife deserves a trophy I dare say. She has been wonderful while I have been putting myself through this literary madness exercise. I love her for it. Well, I loved her before it as well, but I love her even more.

I can hear the whole lot of you yelling from your computers and fancy smart phones as you are reading this.

“What the heck is your stupid book about??!!???” I’m sure some of you used even more choice language than that.

Well, what I thought it was going to be about in the beginning has evolved. I’ll tell you some things that it’s about, but don’t expect it to make sense.

It entitled Harvest Wind.

It’s about a teenage boy coming to grips with his stuttering disorder.

It’s about a young blossoming teen romance. (Yeah, I especially didn’t see that one coming either).

It’s about a murder mystery.

It’s about a people, a city, who live dual compartmentalized lives in a dream like world completely separate from their reality when they are awake.

It’s about a people fighting for survival.

It’s about a young boy coming to believe in himself as he tries to find his place in the world.

Is that enough to confuse you at least? The book took so many unexpected turns as I was writing it. There were many moments while I was writing that I laughed out loud by what one of my characters said or did. There were other times I could feel the love sickness that often times infects the hearts of those who are young. And there were times that I felt heart broken at the things that had happened. It was seriously an emotional roller coaster, not just feeling all the feelings of the main characters of my novel, but I also had all of the feelings of inadequacy come at me at times. There were several times throughout the month that I was attacked by, what the NaNoWriMo people call, my “inner editor”. This evil little thing often told me that my writing was crap, that this was a stupid idea, and that I should just call the whole damn thing off. I mean seriously, what was I thinking anyway? I got myself down several times thinking about the heap of rubbish that I attempted to call a novel in progress.

It very well maybe a big heap of … rubbish, but at least I proved that I could nearly write a novel in 30 days (over 80,000 words strong!). And if I can write a novel in thirty days I can do just about anything. Such as write a blog post at least once a week! Ha!

I’ve already had several people ask if they could read it. I want to at least finish the first draft before letting anybody touch it, but then I really need some people who have a good editing eye. Right now the book is untouched, riddled with inconsistencies and typos. I hope that some of you will please read this and help me make it better. If you would like to read a draft of this to help improve it, email me at pathologicallyspeaking (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll add you to a list. Don’t hold your breath as to how long it might take me to complete the first draft. It feels like it still needs at least 10,000 more words, its kind of hard to tell.

And yes, I totally plan on doing this again next year, but I hope to enlist some friends in real life and on the web, to join me in this crazy challenge. Maybe you could join me next November.

Thanks for letting me ramble on this topic. I promise to shut up about it for a good year or so unless I really just want to tell you guys about one thing or another.

Now back to your regular scheduled blog program.Yes, I'm actually going to be writing about speech therapy stuff again.

Where Did Bob Go?

Howdy peoples,

I bet you’ve been wondering, hmm, were did Bob go? If you are anything like me, if something doesn’t come up in your google reader it just doesn’t exist. So, you’re most likely not very concerned. If you aren't then you can stop reading right now, if you are concerned though (and I love you for it!!) then continue.

Well, I’m not writing jack this month because I’m writing too much. Make any sense? Of course not. If you know me well, you should know that I rarely make much sense at all. But there is a very good reason for this nonsense.

It’s November, which is National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known as NaNoWriMo, if you follow me on twitter, then you’ve seen my frantic tweets about the event already (on both accounts @speechbob and @aoirselvar), as well as updates on facebook (poor confused dave). This year I have decided to throw in my lot with those crazy people who are attempting to write at least 1667 words a day in order to meet the grand old goal of 50,000 words by Novemeber 30th.

It’s been fun, but everything else in my life has been put on hold. Including writing blog posts, playing video games, catching up on my DVRed shows, feeding my cat (did I mention that I recently got a cat?), personal hygiene… you name it.

But today is November 13th, and I’m at 28,000 words already! I’m more than half way there! Woot! But only problem is that my novel is more than half way done. I’ve actually set my goal for 70,000 words, which I hope to eep out a decent story.

My story? Well, it’s a fantasy story about a boy name Praxton (yes I stole this character from previous writings, but he’s nearly completely different. Like a different dimension Praxton, in a different world, etc). I’m actually pretty happy with what I’ve written so far, I’m worried about letting the masses actually read the book, but if really really want to read the book and help me revise it, email me at aoirselvar (at) gmail (dot) com. I won’t even send anything out until I’m done with draft one, after I let some people at least get rid of all the many typos.

Anyway, I have spent much too much time writing this blog post. And in order to save time so I can write more on my NaNoWriMo, I’m just going to put this post on the three blogs that I write on (Pathologically Speaking, Casual Huntering, Blog of Bob & Lindy, even though the have nothing in common and I write on some of them more often than others.

Everybody have a great day, and I’ll see you in December.

Good Byes and Hellos

I recently have released a few students from speech services. Often times I have mixed feelings about this. On one side, it’s good for the student to move on, they don’t need you anymore. Yet, we tend to grow rather fond of our students. Those of us working in elementary schools, we get to watch our students grow up. I work preschool through 6^th grade. I’ve only started the preschool part last year, but I have 3 of my preschoolers in kindergarten now. They’re already a little taller and a little more mature. It’s incredible just how quickly it all happens. And every year, a new batch of our kids are getting ready to enter Jr. High School. I hope and pray that they’ll be able to make it, that they’ll do okay.

The speech language pathologist has to have a big heart to do what we do with so many that we work with. We have to be flexible to let new kids enter our heart at a moments whim; yet, we have to be understanding when our students move with little notice.

I use to have a real hard time with good-byes. I’ve never much really liked them, but there have been so many in my life, not many were permanent though, just moving on from one stage of my life to another. This school year seems to be riddle with them. My school has a high turn over rate mostly due to our status as a title one school. I always have a stack of files that are ready and waiting for a file request, and I’m constantly adding kids to my schedule. My schedule has been all over the place this year. As if it wasn’t bad enough due to the fact that we’re also a year round school. At least some of the kids come and go so quickly that I don’t get time to get attached.

There are those who manage to sneak into your heart quicker than others. One that I released recently reminds me of my daughter, same spirit, same obsession with princesses, same smile. I had to let her go, and I was happy to hear from the mom that the student was very sad to have to end speech.

Luckily, we still have several years where she can say hello in the halls.

Therapy Dashing

Yeah, I’ve dropped the ball, haven’t written anything on the blog for 1 ½ weeks now. I am a world class slacker. Truthfully, things have just been busy, and I’ve been lazy on Tuesday mornings (when I usually write my new posts). So, I’m try to be better in the future.

Now I do have to admit, that even though I use my iPod touch a lot in speech therapy, I also play a lot of games on it. I recently bought a game called Mystic Emporium. I doubt you’ve heard of it, doesn’t matter, it’s basically a “Diner Dash” style game (don’t worry, I’m really getting somewhere with this). In the game Dinner Dash, you are a waitress trying to take care of a diner. You have to seat people, get their order, put the order in to the cooks, clean up their tables, etc. Seems simple, right? Well, once you get going to gets a little crazy, you have like 3 families waiting to be seated, you’re trying to get an elderly couples food out to them, while cleaning up several tables so more people can be seated. Basically it’s a time management game. You have to try to multi-task as much as possible, try to kill two birds with one stone whenever you can, basically try to survive while you have a million things to do.

 

It then hit me, are these kind of games so different than my life as a speech language pathologist? Working with teachers with classroom interventions, sending home this consent to evaluate, planning for that therapy session, finding time to evaluate a student, sped meetings, progress reports, IEPs, etc, etc, etc.

Suddenly the game seemed a little less interesting. It was starting to hit too close to home. 

Time management is something I’m still working on. Keeping on top of IEPs can be tricky when you are working year round. You have to pay attention to who is going off track soon so you can get their meetings done before they leave. Sometimes they sneak up on you. I’m trying to keep on top of the many referrals that I have coming through the wood works. I’m getting better about documenting everything so I don’t let any kids slip through the cracks.

Now I’m not going to even claim to be an expert in this area, I’m still trying to learn how to do this myself, but I have a book that’s been helping me keep everything in focus. First Things First by Stephen R. Covey, A. Rodger Merrill, and Rebecca R.Merrill has been a great asset. Now I don’t do everything in the book, actually, I need to do a whole lot more so I can stay on top of things. But the book doesn’t focus on staying on top of things so much as focusing on the most important things. 

I think sometimes we can get caught up so much into the paperwork and the logistics of everything that we end up sacrificing the child. I have to admit, at times when I have a lot of IEPs to write, and several other paperwork related items to get to, I’ve felt the “therapy” was getting in the way of me doing my job. Woah! What was that? Yeah, the things they teach in this book is helping me keep the right focus. The students come first; their progress is the most important. Of course everything else has to get done as well. That’s just the nature of our jobs. We have to be able to do everything. However, again, our priority has to be the people we’re serving weather it is students at a school or patients in a hospital.

Versatile blogger award

If you haven't heard, we got a blog award from NDNspeechMom.




As a requirement to receiving this award, you have to tell 7 things about yourself. Kristin has already listed her seven. So, I guess it's my turn.

1.  My wife and I have three kids with one on the way (Sorry Kristin, we can't name this one after you because it's going to be a boy). My oldest daughter is in kindergarten and goes to work with me in the morning which has been great. We both have enjoyed the morning time we spend together. I have her count and work on her letters on the way to work and then she plays on my iPod Touch while I attempt to get some paperwork done before her class starts. I enjoy spending time with them, they are super cute, all my wife's genes I swear. And my wife is the most wonderful and patient person I know. I always tease her about having to raise the 4 kids (myself included).

2. This is the first year that I've been able bring in my guitar into therapy. During the functional skills groups I have tried to incorporate music, which is a great way to get their attention. I've been playing guitar since I was thirteen, but as of late I've neglected it. So, when I actually played guitar with our song in our large language group, all the kids were focused more than usual. It was great!

3. When I'm not being lazy I create some of my own language Tx material with my own artistic abilities, if you can believe that. I've made several poster board scenes with Velcro dots on them where kids can add little pictures of animals. I haven't created one in a little while. I end up getting obsessed with them and I neglect my family a little too much over them.

4. My job at my local church is to conduct the church choir. I’ve been singing in choirs since 3rd grade, so it’s right up my alley. At some point in college I stopped because I felt like I had to focus on my major (which is true, choir sometimes demands a lot of attention). Luckily before I started getting into my major in college I was able to meet Lindy, my wife. We met in a choir while in college. She has a beautiful alto voice and sometimes we sing solos in church. We’re also finding that our kids are picking up on our love for singing, particularly my five year old. Part of me wants to go back to school and get a second bachelors degree in music with an emphasis on voice and then become a speech language pathologist, voice therapist, for famous singers. /sigh.

5. I’m a geek. Anybody who has follows me at @aoirselvar as well as @speechbob on twitter knows that. I created two twitter accounts to separate my geekiness from my speechiness. I love sci-fi and fantasy. My favorite TV show is Firefly (a sci-fi) and my favorite author is Brandon Sanderson (a fantasy author – whom I’ve had the opportunity to meet twice). I’m just like Kristin in that I normally carry a book around with me everywhere and read a little bit when ever I get a chance. Most of the time those books are in the fantasy genre of course. I didn’t dress up as Gandalf when Lord of the Rings came out, but that’s mostly because I was in college and didn’t have time or money, but I would have. And yes, I have a gaming blog as well which you can see here. However, in the last couple of months I’ve greatly neglected my gaming blog (haven't written since August) do to a new project that I’m working on (this blog). But I mean to throw something up there soon so people don't think I died.

6. My current obsession is my new iPod Touch, which I was going to discuss in my next SLP blog post. I’ve only had it for 3 weeks, but I already have more than 100 apps on it. And I got this nifty skin for it. Just barely put it on last night. I think it makes it look sweet. You can find different artwork to put your your ipod or iphone at Gelaskins.com. Tomorrow, I’ll discuss its usefulness as an educational speech therapist in more detail. But besides its usefulness, it’s heck-a-fun. I’ll admit that I purchased several games on there. And in my defense I’ve also purchased several educational apps for my kids. My kids are obsessed with this. They tend to crowd around, all three fighting for a space on my lap. It gets a little chaotic, but it’s a lot of fun.

7. Originally, I was going into Deaf Education. I have a lot of experience in sign language. I’ve taken more than 8 classes, and I toyed with the idea of becoming an ASL (American Sign Language) teacher for high school students or an interpreter for the Deaf. When I went to Utah State University I had a teacher sway me to becoming a speech therapist, but that’s another story for another day. I still like using sign language, but I don’t get opportunities to practice like I once did. Often times my wife and I will sign to each other when we want a private conversation, but I really should get back with it and practice more.

As for who we’ll pass this award over to, I’m not sure who. Kristin and I will have to figure that out and get back to y’all on that one.

Twitter Shared SLP Goal Bank

Last week one of the SLPeeps from our twitter group of friends came up with an idea that we thought was fabulous. She started a shared ever growing twitter SLP goal bank.

We all jumped on it quickly and with in a few hours we had over two hundred annual and short term goals. We have it categorized according to the type of disorder. From articulation to dysphagia, there is a little of everything. And they are in many different formats, from SMART to IEP based.

Of course we don't suggest that you cut and paste these goals for your students/client. All goals should be individualized for the person that your working with. However, it's helpful to have some sample goals so that you can get fresh ideas, or see how somebody else worded the goal. Even if you are a seasoned veteran you can still benefit from perusing though these goals.

How do you participate? Well, the twitter goal bank is on a shared google document. In order to get access you need to send a direct message to @albrechtjn on twitter. She then can share you the document at which you can share goals with the rest of us. I debated about posting the goal bank here in it's entirety, but we got concerned with copyright issues and such, but needless to say if you struggle coming up with goals or you just want a fresh perspective then I highly suggest you give it a try.

Again, what you have to do is get on twitter (if you don't already have a twitter account then you'll have to make one - don't worry, it's free and easily done). When you are logged on to twitter go to the following page: http://twitter.com/albrechtjn then you'll want to follow her. After she gets a chance to follow you back (unless you are spam at which you'll probably just be blocked) then you can send her a direct message to request access to the goal bank. The reason we're having you send the direct message is so she can get your email address in privacy. She'll never spam you, promise. After she emails you the invitation then you need to go to google Docs. I'm realizing that you probably also need to make a google account for this. That's not hard to do, easiest way to do that is to set up a Gmail account (also free) by going to http://www.gmail.com. If you hadn't made a gmail account then you'll be happy you did, it's the best email out there, but now I'm getting off on a tangent. Access your google documents at http://docs.google.com.

There are a few rules stated on the top of the document. Basically, label any goals you add, don't change anybody's goals except your own, etc, etc. You can also chat with other people viewing the file, which was fun for us when we discovered it.

If you have and questions you can leave me a comment or you can email me at pathologicallyspeaking(at)gmail(dot)com.

Newbie Advice for Educational SLPs

As quoted by Douglas Adams, the best advice for newbies is “Don’t Panic”. Very calm and comforting words which are easier said than done I’m sure. But you’ve been trained at a certified program, you are at least CFY ready (My professors always told me that their job was to at least get us CFY ready, if nothing else). So, trust your training and jump in head first.

(If you don’t know, CFY means clinical fellowship year, which is when you first start as an SLP working on supervision for the 36 weeks or so. It’s required to obtain your CCCs – Certificate of Clinical Competence, which you obtain from ASHA – American Speech Language Hearing Association. For more information go to ASHA’s website here. Of course if you are not in the United States, then your system is different and I haven’t a clue about your certification. I just wanted to add that for our international friends).

Now I’m a little slower than Kristin for getting blog posts out. I have 3 ½ very good reasons for being so and they range from 5 years old to still in the womb. So, I hope you are patient with me. Being a father of 3 comes with a lot of demands, but its also incredibly rewarding, but on with the blog post.

As for the job, being an SLP on the educational side, you’re in for a treat, but it won’t feel like it your first year. If you’re anything like me you’ll take a couple of hours in the beginning on each IEP (individual education plan). You’ll likely stay an extra 2-3 hours a day as well. There will be many times where you feel incompetent as a therapist, which is normal. (I still do much of the time).

So, relax, breathe and Don’t Panic. The nice thing about working in the schools is that you’re not going to hurt the kids if you make a big mistake. Its okay to be a newbie. Now I’m not telling you to go out and try to make as many big mistakes as you can, but you need to accept that you’ll make some at least. Speech Language Pathologists tend to be perfectionists, with a keen eye for detail. This is a great asset in our profession, but it makes the first year a little grueling. There’s a lot to learn and you’re not going to obtain perfection your first year (and probably not your second year… and probably… never). And that’s …. okay. Give yourself a little credit for what your accomplished and be a little self forgiving. And remember, there hasn’t been a single casualty from /r/ therapy in the history of speech therapy as far as I can recall.

Now as you get going you’re going to find your own way of doing things. There isn’t a wrong and a right way generally. For example, I’ve seen speech therapist do many many different approaches to making their schedule. Some like to have it out on paper, others like to have it on the computer. It really depends on your preference. In the beginning I like to write it out on paper with a pencil so it can easily be changed, then I start to put it into the computer. I had used an excel file to keep track of it, but now I use a private google calendar. I also have the dilemma of having to schedule 4 different tracks at a year round school (as well as a traditional school year preschool). This comes with a whole new host of issues that most SLPs don’t have to worry about. I’d say figure out what’s right for you. In a year or two you’ll have your own system down. I’d write more on this subject, but I think it deserves its own post altogether. Still the concept is important to know. Figure out what works for you.

There are many different things that you have to think about (scheduling, group therapy, IEP goals, homework, behavior system, etc, etc). And its easy for me to say “figure out what works for you”, but I know that wouldn’t have cut it for me when I was brand new. So, let me tell you something, idea thievery isn’t a crime as an SLP (unless you’re trying to make money off it, and that’s another matter altogether). Seriously, ask around what other SLPs are doing, then take what you like the most and try it yourself. You’ll find that SLPs love to share with other SLPs. Heck we just enjoy talking to each other, touching base with someone else who understands what we do. So, don’t be shy and call some of the other SLPs in the district. You might even ask if you can observe what they do maybe shadow them for half a day or something (this was the best thing for me, to watch veteran SLPs in action). Now there are probably several of you out there that don’t have much contact with other SLPs (the nature of our industry sometimes). I then suggest to do some professional networking. There are many networking sites out there such as facebook, twitter, linkedin, forums, etc. I personally like twitter the most (as you can read from this post), but the others I’m sure are just as good.

In the beginning I’d suggest to make friends with the faculty. You’ll likely have to compromise on several issues with the teachers and administration. Always put the students first, but remember that if there is a feud between you and the faculty of your school then you will really be miserable. I’ve only occasional had problems with teachers, never with the administration, but I’ve heard several horror stories. I really believe that they are the exception though, most often working in education means you get to work with great people who love working with children. To the most part you get to work with the cream of the crop. I love the staff that I work with.

You’ll find that you have to sometimes take work home with you, lesson plans, progress reports, goal writing, etc. That won’t completely ever go away, I don’t think. I know some speech therapists that don’t take anything home, but I’m not one of them. I’ve gotten a lot better in the last couple of years, but when it comes time to write progress reports it’s another story. I would suggest to try to keep that to a minimum if (and when) possible. I know you may be having a write an IEP the night before, or sometime you are desperately trying to get a lesson plan ready for a language group. I know, I’ve been there. However, if you are able to leave work at work as much as possible, your chances of burning out will drop significantly. I remember one of the courses that I was required to take in college for this degree was stress management. They taught us many stress relieving activities that can help you stay healthy and sane. Figure out you’re way to unwind, and do it frequently.

Now it's easy to let your focus on therapy slip. There will come a time when paperwork will try to take over, where you have too many IEPs to write with very little of time to do it (often times this comes in May & December where it seems like a lot of IEPs tend to land). You'll start your day feeling like your therapy time is getting in the way of other stuff. This is something you have to fight. Don’t worry, the IEPs will get easier to write. You’ll be an old pro in no time.

As Kristin has said, in the beginning you feel like a fraud. And the lingering feeling never quite leaves. I'm only now starting to feel somewhat competent as an educational SLP. I also agree that you need to appear confident (especially in IEP meetings). You really do know more than you think you do. Sometimes I doubt myself thinking "seriously anybody could do this therapy, how hard is artic therapy after all". But when I've spoken with teachers about doing some simple interventions with students I'm surprised with their reactions. They often are clueless about things I would assume were obvious. You really are your school’s expert in speech and language. No one there has the training you have had. Now don’t get a big head or anything, but remember – you are the expert.

I want to share one last thing that was suggested to me by my CF supervisor. Stay at your first school (if you can) only for a couple of years at most. The faculty in your first school (or schools) see you as new and inexperienced which is okay because you are at your first school, but once a person has established an impression of someone it's hard to change. If you go to a brand new school after a couple of years they'll just see you as a seasoned veteran instead of a newbie. Just an idea, it won’t be possible for everybody. It just so happens that my district is one of the largest in the country so we have a few schools. Its kind of nice to have a fresh start now that you’ve learned the ropes and have figured out the way you like to do things.

Remember it never hurts to ask questions. You still are a student in many ways, something that never really ends. You still need to further your education as much as you can, there is just too much to know in this field. Teachers and parents will ask you questions and will stump you from time to time (happens to me more often than not). Let them know if you don’t know an answer than you’ll do some research and figure it out.
It seems like my blog post has rambled off in my different directions. I just have so many thoughts in my head, but I’ve never been one to think in a linear fashion. I know the second I post this another good idea will pop in my head “Dohhh, I forgot to add that one thing.” If you have anything to add please do so. What were you’re big struggles your first year, or if you are in the middle of starting out, what are your struggles?

We're still here

Just so you know, we're still poking about. We're in the middle of trying to figure out how we want to do this blog thing. I'm starting to write a post for newbie educational SLPs. I'm starting to test out some iphone / ipod touch apps that I'll be writing about. As usual, we always trying to come up with ideas to post about.

Oh, and we're getting a contest together, we already got somethings lined up for that.

Just wanted to let you guys know that we're thinking about ya. But you have to excuse us a little. I mean come on, September is like one of the busiest months for school SLPs (as you well may know). I'm up to my ears with work, but I'm committed to being a better blogger.

So, there are some things to look forward to in the future.

Bob's moment in the lime light

Check out Bob's post on the ASHA blog!  http://blog.asha.org/2010/09/07/connecting-with-my-slpeeps-on-twitter/ 

It's very prestigious of him to be asked by them, I must say.

Any thoughts from our readers on networking via twitter?

Topic requests

Well, now that we're starting this blog, we're interested in your input.  What would you like to read about?  Let us know in a comment!

I'm thinking about posting some of my favorite therapy materials, AAC devices, ideas for therapy activities in certain areas, and how I feel about burn-out, etc.  I'm hoping Bob blogs about being a working dad, therapy ideas, behavior management, high caseload issues, Twitter networking, interesting cases, etc.  I guess some of the specifics I wish we could blog about are tricky what with HIPPA and all.

Well, this week was a full work week for me after a week-long vacation to Lake Powell Utah.  It was actually good to be back and also good to have a fresh new schedule of patients I didn't know yet.  I like the turn-over factor in the medical side of Speech-Language Pathology.  I think it helps me to keep things fresh and avoid burn-out (well, sometimes that is).

Well, more from me later- let us know your requests!!!

XOXO
~Kristin

A Little Clarification

Just to clarify on some of the stuff I want to do with this blog. (What Kristin does is another matter).

I would like to write about educational speech therapy ideas, struggles, amusing anecdotes, and speech related ramblings. I'll also review therapy material and webpages from time to time as well as give little guides to parents with children with communication disorders. I'll admit right from the get go that I am not the most creative speech pathologist in the world and there are people that have a far greater expertise in different communication areas. Education speech language pathologists have to be a jack of all trades. We get to work with a little bit of everything. I'll attempt to point you in the right direction to get more information on any given topic that I write about. 

And I reserve the right to occasionally rant on a non-SLP related topic, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

Oh, and my attention span is short sometimes. I'm bad about proofreading. (Yeah, I don't know how I got through grad school either). I'm in the middle on an intervention, so bare with me.

Bob

♠ ´¨)
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•` (¸If at first you don’t succeed then, sky diving isn’t for you!

First Post

Pathologically speaking is a brand new SLP (Speech Language Pathology) blog for other SLPs and people interested in the medical and educational practice of speech language therapy. There are two of us that will be writing on this blog. As for me, I'm Bob Bateman. You can follow my daily adventures on twitter at Speechbob. I work with kids from preschool age to the 6th grade in the public schools. I have 3 kids of my own with one on the way. I'm always trying to figure out how to balance work and home in an on going juggling attempt. I'm particularly interested in AAC, fluency, narrative language therapy, and trying to stay on top of the growing pile of papers on my desk.

I'm excited to join the SLP blogging community and I hope that we can share some great therapy ideas. I may more often give stories of life as an educational SLP (without giving specifics or names as to not break any confidences of course).

That's all for now. I'll let Kristin introduce her self.

Bob Bateman

♠ ´¨)
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•` (¸If at first you don’t succeed then, sky diving isn’t for you!