Simple Tools for Optimal Outcomes - Ep. 70
Therapy prep can be time consuming or painless— we all want more painless prep than painful! As you prep for therapy do you find yourself thinking:
What can I do today that both fun and productive? And I’m sure my clients would appreciate something new!
- I don’t have a big budget for materials, how can I best spend my money?
- I need something more than fun, it needs to make a difference for my clients and have lots of opportunities for practice.
- How can I teach self monitoring better? I’m sure if some of my clients could self monitor they would finally graduate!
In my 30+ years as an SLP I’ve faced down all these questions and more, and I want to share some of my best kept secretes. That’s why I create Simple Tools videos. This podcast takes you on a tour of the Simple Tools library, and highlights just a few of the videos in the areas of language, articulation, attention, phonological awareness, autism, and fun stuff.
--- Useful Links ---
Orange is a Carrot: Simple Poem Six Ways
A Little Help With Back Tongue Movement
Phonemic Awareness for Parents
Music: Simple Gifts performed by Ted Yoder, used with permission
Transcript
Denise: Welcome to the Speech Umbrella, the show that explores simple but powerful therapy techniques for optimal outcomes. I'm Denise Stratton, a pediatric Speech Language Pathologist of 30 plus years. I'm closer to the end of my career than the beginning, and along the way, I've worked long and hard to become a better therapist.
Join me as we explore the many topics that fall under our umbrellas as SLPs. I want to make your journey smoother. I found the best therapy comes from employing simple techniques with a generous helping of mindfulness. Hello SLPs, welcome to Episode 70 of the Speech Umbrella podcast. You may not know that in addition to these podcasts, I have several short videos demonstrating therapy techniques and materials.
These are my Simple Tools videos, and today I'm going to take you on a tour through the Simple Tools library. You can find these videos on my website at thespeechumbrella.com, and you can also find them at YouTube. Just go to YouTube and search for The Speech Umbrella. This podcast is called Simple Tools for Optimal Outcomes, because as I always say, when you master the simple, the complex takes care of itself.
Yeah, you've heard that before, if you're a listener of this podcast. Have you ever had these thoughts as you're preparing for therapy? What do I do today with Johnny? If he's not tired of Hungry Hippo, I sure am. Or I don't have a big budget for materials, how can I best spend my money? Or whatever I choose, it's got to be more than fun. It needs to make a difference, there needs to be a lot of opportunity for practice without me being a drill sergeant. I faced all of these questions down in my 30 plus years, and that's why I make Simple Tools videos. Now, in case you're not familiar with them, my videos show you how to do therapy, simply, inexpensively and effectively.
My goal today is to show how simple activities can lead to powerful changes. We all know speech and language disabilities can be complex and convoluted, but the solution doesn't need to be. Sometimes seeing is better than hearing, and that's why I create videos too. I've divided these videos into five categories, language, articulation, phonological awareness, issues with attention and or autism, and fun and flexible reinforcement tools.
And this library of Simple Tools is growing all the time. I'm going to highlight a couple of Simple Tools videos in each category. There is overlap between some categories, of course, that's the nature of speech and language. And these tools are flexible enough that you can use them for so many different kinds of activities.
Let's talk about language first. One of my favorite activities is around a poem and a song called Orange is a Carrot. So this activity is called Orange is a Carrot. Simple poem, Six Ways, because you can do six different things with it. You can work on memorization, you can work on rhyme, You can work on recall, the rhythm of language, one to one word correspondence, vocabulary as far as attributes and even categories.
All you need are the cards and the song sheet available thespeechumbrella.com or on Teachers Pay Teachers. Now, just be aware that on Teachers Pay Teachers, you have to give things amazingly long names, so that people can find what they're searching for. So on Teachers Pay Teachers, it's called Perfect Poem for Phonological Awareness and Auditory Memory.
One of the reasons I absolutely love this activity is sometimes you get clients who speak too quickly. They're speaking so quickly, they're mushing their words together, they're not really aware that words have these boundaries. They're not really aware of one to one word correspondence. And so I use carpet markers, and I lay down enough carpet markers for them to step on for each line of the poem, and they become aware of that one-to-one word correspondence as they step on each marker to say each word. And also they're memorizing the poem while we do that. So that's just one of the ways I use Orange is a Carrot, so check that video out.
Another activity I love is what I call Picnic Fun. Who doesn't love a picnic? Little kids sure do. So with this activity, I bring out a blanket and we bring out the puppets or the stuffed animals, the play food, and we have a picnic. Now where the therapy comes in is using pictures of food and animals that I have on thespeechumbrella.com to help my clients plan and verbalize their plan. So I have a Velcro board and we choose what animals are coming to our picnic. Picnic Fun is great for so many skills. It can help reduce impulsiveness in clients, if they're not great at pointing, it can help them start to choose and point. It can help them plan, which goes along with working on impulsiveness, asking and answering questions, pronouns, sequencing, who's going to eat first, who's gonna eat next, and symbolic play and kids love it.
Another activity I have is called Conjunction Function. That's also the name of a recent podcast. So you might have already seen this Simple Tools video, but for those of you who haven't, I use Tinker Toys to show how we use conjunctions to put clauses together and create complex sentences, and that visual can really help some clients.
Okay, let's talk about articulation. If you like marshmallows, this activity is for you, or if your kids like marshmallows, I call it the marshmallow roast. Now, this is for children who are just learning to vocalize and they don't really have good control of their phonation and they just need to learn to say ha and mmm and ahh, so what you do is you have these little bamboo skewers. I get these mini ones off of Amazon. I have the mini marshmallows and I have something that represents a fire. I just have an app on my iPad that crackles like a fire, so it's really cool. And we just work on saying, ah, for putting the marshmallow on, we work on saying, mmm, so good. Or maybe umm, if they're ready to combine an uh with it, mmm, and rub our tummies and we just go mmm. And we practice ha for hot. So it is so awesome. They're so motivated to learn to use their breath to phonate. And that gets you going when kids need to learn how to control their phonation.
Now, on the other end of articulation here is a video for back tongue movement. I call it A Little Help with Back Tongue Movement. I got this idea from Char Boshart off of her website about getting back tongue movement for K and G. I had a client who was really, really struggling with this, and he actually got the R first. But that was great cuz then he got the K and the G. And what was so fantastic about this approach was he was so hypersensitive to oral sensation, but at the same time he had very poor awareness of the space within his mouth.
For this particular client, this was his ticket to learning those sounds, and I demonstrate how to do it. And it could be especially helpful for parents because Char recommends that they do this at home too. So you can just tell the parents look, here's a video. Do this at home, give 'em some toothettes and tongue depressors and they are good to go.
Speaking of other videos for parents, I have one on phonological awareness. Now. If you listen to this podcast for a while, you have heard me talk about Equipped for Reading Success by Dr. David Kilpatrick over and over again, and that's just because it's gold. It's simply gold. I have found as I do this program with kids, not only is their reading improving but their language is improving, I find as they're able to manipulate sounds in their minds and hear how words sound, they also understand how sentences should sound.
So I have a video for SLPs and I also have a video for parents. If you would like your parents to participate in doing the Equipped for Reading Success program with their child at home, I've explained how to do it because parents can be kind of intimidated by this. So there you go, you've got two videos for working with the Equipped for Reading Success program.
This next activity I'm gonna talk about ties into phonological awareness, but it also ties into articulation and self-monitoring. And I call it Tally It Up. It is a drop dead simple sticky note pencil activity. It's extremely effective at promoting self-monitoring. So check that one out.
Okay, let's shift over to autism and attention. I put these together because so often the kids with autism need to work on attention, but that doesn't necessarily mean that these activities are only for clients with autism. I've got one I call Bingo. I think this is my most popular video. It's a video of a client who is so cute. When he first came to me he was nearly nonverbal when he started, and I needed a way to get his attention. So what we do is we sing the Bingo song together and we clap our hands together while making eye contact, and I demonstrate how to do that in the video. You can see how motivated he is to do that. Now the bingo activity doesn't work for every client, but when it does work, it works wonders. This client is now speaking in phrases and he has started to read and he was not taught how to read. He just one day started reading words and his parents are amazed. You can see it when you watch the video that he has a fairly significant syndrome along with the diagnosis of autism, and people had no clue what potential was hidden inside of him. So when I say bingo works wonders, it does work wonders with some clients.
Okay, here is another activity that I absolutely love. I call it Puzzle Pointing. And this is my favorite way to get clients choosing and pointing. So it has to do with taping puzzle pieces on a wall and using a pointer stick to point and choose. And most kids adore this activity, so check that one out.
Okay, Moving on to fun and flexible. As I've said before, if it fires together, it wires together, so you gotta have fun. Two of my most fun and most flexible activities are my catapults and my balloon shooter. It costs literally pennies to make these, They're adaptable to a wide variety of ages.
These are the things I grab to rescue a therapy session. When things go awry, I grab my catapult or I grab my balloon shooter and away we go. These are adaptable to language and to articulation goals, to get kids moving around the room. And lots of parents look at me and say, how do I make those? And I'm like, just go to my Simple Tools videos and you'll know how to make them.
Last, but not least, Science Experiments. This is for the older kids. I initially started using science experiments as a way to video kids who were nearing the end of the articulation journey, and they needed to be able to evaluate themselves and listen back and know when they were making errors, and I still use it for that. But lately I have been using science experiments as a reinforcement tool for my clients who have been coming a long, long time.
So I have some clients who have some pretty severe dyslexia or some pretty severe apraxia that they're overcoming and they're just gonna be in therapy for a while, and when they just get tired, they start to get worn down and come in week after week, I'm like, hey, will you meet this goal? And you get to do a science experiment.
And I tell ya, that just peps them right up. They are so excited to go make something blow a balloon up or whatever. So that video just shows you how to put things together in a science box so you don't have to go raid your kitchen cupboard every time you wanna do a science experiment. I have it all together in a box. I carry the box in, oh what are we gonna make today? So that is the last video that I'm gonna talk about today, but I have several more. These videos, of course, are on my website, thespeechumbrella.com, but they're also on YouTube, so to find them on YouTube, go to YouTube and search for The Speech Umbrella.
Please like and subscribe because that tells YouTube that this was a great video and other SLPs should find it. I love Simple Tools because when you master the simple, the complex tastes care of itself, and it makes your therapy planning so much easier. Nothing convoluted, don't have to print out a million worksheets.
I don't have to have a game with 20 pieces that we're gonna lose one, or that has rules that's gonna take you half the therapy session to read and figure out the rules. So simple is really, really effective. Talk to you next time.
Thanks for listening to the speech umbrella. We invite you to sign up for the free resource library at thespeechumbrella.com. You'll get access to some of Denise's best tracking tools, mindfulness activities, and other great resources to take your therapy to the next level. All this is for free at thespeechumbrella.com. If you've enjoyed this podcast, subscribe and please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and other podcast directories.
