Offer to Present To a Class May is Better Hearing and Speech Month, and let’s be honest, at the end of the school year classroom teachers are always willing to have others come into their classrooms and present. This is your chance to do teach kids about their hearing and preventing hearing loss, or to talk about what stuttering is. … Read More
5 Tips for Teaching Self Advocacy Skills to Middle & High School Students
If you’ve worked with middle & high school students, you know they might not be as excited to work on self advocacy skills as younger students. Of course that’s a broad generalization, and some are, but for the most part, you have to be a little more persuasive. They might think they already know everything there is to know about … Read More
Addressing Phonological & Phonemic Awareness in Speech Therapy
One of my “soap boxes” as a therapist, is how important it is to support phonological and phonemic awareness in kids with speech and language disorders. I’ve discussed before how oral language ties into literacy skills, but how exactly do you accomplish that? Today, we’re going to dive in to that question, and I’ll offer you some ideas that have … Read More
Getting the Best Speech and Language Information from Classroom Teachers
We’ve all been there…you’ve asked classroom teachers to give you input for a student’s IEP meeting, and the day before the meeting you’re still trying to track them down so you can finish your paperwork. Or, you got a referral back because a teacher has concerns about articulation, but you didn’t actually get any useful information. Getting the best speech … Read More
How to Earn TPT Credits and Use Them For Your Purchases
Everyone likes to save money, right? Especially when you’re purchasing resources for your therapy or classroom with your own money. In my opinion, earning and using TPT credits for leaving reviews on resources you’ve already purchased is one of the easiest ways to do that. Today I’ll show you how. Find Your Purchases First, you’ll want to make sure you’re … Read More
Why We Need to Teach Kids About Voting (Spoiler…it doesn’t have anything to do with politics!)
Every November, my favorite day rolls around–voting and election day! I love it for lots of reasons–the excitement, the communal feeling of going to the polls with my neighbors, and maybe most of all knowing that my voice will be heard. When we think about teaching our kids about voting, I think some teachers and therapists shy away from it. … Read More
5 Ways Jokes Can Be Funny: Explicitly Teaching Your Students to Understand Jokes
Even as adults, we sometimes struggle to understand why jokes are funny, don’t we? We might brush kids off and say “well, you had to be there” or “it just is…” But that doesn’t really help our students build their understanding about humor and jokes, does it? Breaking Jokes Down When we help kids understand why jokes are funny, we … Read More
5 Ways to Help Others Understand What You Do as a Speech Language Pathologist
If you had a quarter for every time someone asked “So what does a speech language pathologist do?” you’d be retired on a beach somewhere, right? And I mean, I can’t blame them…we do a LOT. And it’s not super intuitive that a speech therapist treats such diverse needs as traumatic brain injury, swallowing, and R sounds. Am I right? … Read More
Tame Those Noisy Toys
In November each year, the Sight & Hearing Association puts out their annual Noisy Toys List. As parents we know these toys can be annoying, but some toys are so noisy they can actually be dangerous. Noise Induced Hearing Loss Sound is measured in decibels, and sounds that are very loud can permanently damage hearing. Our ears are amazing structures, … Read More
A Case for Teaching About Holidays After They Happen
With Christmas, Hanukkah, and other winter holidays around the corner, I’m sure many therapists are busy front-loading their students with all of the holiday info they might need. Think winter vocabulary, holiday greetings or decorations, a solstice themed craft…there are tons of opportunity to pre-teach our kiddos some of the language and vocabulary they might need. But, I also think … Read More