Multiple Meaning Words

Hello!  Multiple meaning words can be so confusing for kids with a language impairment.  They finally figure out the meaning of a word and then they  hear it used another way.  "What?!? How can you paint another coat on the wall?  I don't see any coats!"  Here are my favorite activities to help kids understand that one word may have two (or even more!) meanings: 

1. Read The King Who Rained by Fred Gwynne.  Discuss the multiple meaning words used in this book.  This also elicits a great conversation about the difference between multiple meaning words and idioms since both are used. 

2. Multiple Meaning Word Match-up- This is the easiest lesson to prepare and the one the kids seem to enjoy the most.  All you have to do is choose multiple meaning words based on your student's ability level.   Cut out the words and definitions.  The kids have to match 2 definitions to 1 word.  To make this "game" easier, put out less choices.  I used this website to find my ability level words. 

3. TV411 Have you all discovered TV411?  It has excellent lessons that are intended for an older audience.  It works perfect for middle school kids.  The lesson I have linked includes 3 activities dealing with words that have multiple meanings.  Excellent feedback is also provided. 

4. Multiple Meaning Word Riddle Book- Have each student create one page for this riddle book.  Provide a list of appropriate words for them to choose from.  They draw two pictures and write two definitions for the same word.  Write the multiple meaning word on the back of the page.  Bonus:  Share the finished book with all of your students for even more practice! 

Talk it up!
Ashley

Sounds in Syllables

Hello!  The next step in artic therapy is to work on the sound in syllables.  I base this portion of therapy on the vowel quadrilateral. 



I made up this little cheat sheet to help during syllable practice.  We can put the target sound at the beginning to form ree, rih, ray, reh, row, roo, raw, etc.  We can put the target sound in the middle to form ee-r-ee, eye-r-uh, ah-r-oo, ow-r-oy, etc.  We can put the target sound at the end to form ear, are, or, our, er, etc.  I wanted to make a sheet that didn't use phoetics so I can send it with the child for homework. 

ee (beed)		oo (boo)
ih (bid)		ou (book)
ay (made)	uh(bud)	oh (bow)
eh (bed)		aw (ball)
a(bad)		ah (bottle)
ow (how)	oy (boy)	eye (buy)

Usually, during this stage of therapy, I drill-teach-drill-teach-drill-teach then have a fun activity at the end of therapy.  Flippin Frogs is a fave because one game only lasts a couple of minutes and the kids LOVE it. I work on sounds in syllables until the child reaches 80% accuracy for three sessions.

Talk it up!

Ashley

From "Wabbit" to "Rabbit"

Hello!  Teaching /r/ can be tricky indeed.  How come some kids go months without a successful /r/ production and some have perfect /r/ productions on day #1???  So frustrating (for the Speech-Language Pathologist and for the kid who still says "wabbit"  after months of speech therapy).  Since every kid is different, I alter my teaching technique case-by-case.  For /r/, I make sure to use Mr. Mouth  (get your own here) since the inside of my actual mouth isn't easily visible for modeling.  I usually emphasize that "your tongue makes the /r/ sound, not your lips."  Then, I shape /r/ from /i/ ("eee").  So, /ri/ (ree), /iri/ (eerie), and /ir/ (ear) are the syllables I start with.  During these first few elicitations, I really look at HOW the client is producing /r/ (or /w/).  I alter my teaching based on where the breakdown is occurring.  Maybe their tongue is being "lazy" or maybe they are making "kissy lips". So I will instruct them to "get their tongue up in the back" or "keep their lips in neutral position."  Neutral position is obtained by biting down on your back teeth and then slightly opening your mouth.  Have a look at Grace learning the /r/ sound:

Fortunately for me, Grace picked up on /r/ immediately!  FYI:  This does not happen often!!  But when it does, pat yourself on the back for being such an amazing SLP. 

I used to teach /r/ as the "smiling sound"  but have since found that technique to do more harm than good.  The kids were making really tensed-lip /r/ sounds that sounded extremely unnatural.  What are some of your tricks? 

Talk it up!

Ashley

Old Sound/ New Sound

Auditory discrimination refers to teaching students to distinguish between correct and incorrect productions of speech sounds.  I like to refer to the sounds as the "old sound" (incorrect production) and the "new sound" (correct production).  Old sound/ new sound is easy for young clients to understand and doesn't have the negative implications of saying, "That was wrong."  Take a look at my favorite way to provide auditory discrimination training.

In this session, I let the client be the teacher.  They use the free iPad app, Glow Draw, to grade my speech.  The "old sound" gets a minus and the "new sound" gets a plus.  Additionally, this is the perfect time to introduce old sound/ new sound to the client.  I think Grace is getting the hang of the new speech lingo!  If the client is having a hard time discriminating between the sounds, I use the iPad app, Artikpix, for auditory discrimination training.  I say the word, record myself, and then play it back several times (sometimes more like 20 times) until the client is able to make a decision.  They love the grading my productions with Artikpix.  Press the smiley face to hear, "Yay" or the frown face to hear, "Awww."

Glow Draw

ArtikPix

I don't spend tons of time on auditory discrimination training.  Usually, about 5 minutes a session for the first couple weeks of therapy.   What works for you?

Talk it up!
Ashley

Stimulability Testing

Stimulability refers to a child's ability to imitate the clinician's model.  During speech evaluations, I like to determine stimulability of all misarticulated sounds.  This is helpful for picking out which sounds to target first.  I have found that the stimulable sounds are easier to train, and are generally my first choices for therapy targets.  Have a look to see if Grace is stimulable for /r/:

Wow!  I love getting easy clients like this! We can tell that Grace is stimulable for /r/ because she was able to imitate my models. Picking out therapy targets for Grace is easy peasy.  The letter /r/!  I base my articulation therapy on a combination of motor-based approaches.  Here's a quick outline:  discrimination, isolation, syllables, words, phrases, sentences, reading, and then conversation. The idea being that practice should occur at increasing levels of complexity until a sound is generalized into conversation.  Come back to follow me through these steps and gain ideas for each level.

Talk it up!
Ashley

Back to the Basics

Hello!  I decided to go back to the basics this week and take a look at traditional articulation therapy.  To begin, I have collected a speech sample from a 7 year old female with an articulation disorder.  She misarticulates /r/ in all word positions and in blends. Have a look for yourself:

Most children make some mistakes as they learn to say new words.  A speech sound disorder occurs when mistakes continue past a certain age.  Every sound has a different range of ages when the child should make the sound correctly.  Speech sound disorders include problems with articulation (making sounds) and phonological processes (sound patterns).  I am going to focus on articulation for the current case study.  

An articulation disorder involves problems making sounds.  The sounds can be substituted, left out, added or distorted.   Grace distorts the /r/ sound.  In the state of Missouri, guidelines state that  /r/ should be developed by age 8.  However, parents can request private speech therapy to address this issue sooner.   After a sample is taken and deviant sounds are identified, the child should be tested for stimulability.  Check back soon to see if Grace is stimulable for /r/. 

Talk it up!

Ashley

(Information was used from ASHA.  Check out their website here.)

Tracking (The Old School Way)

I still use paper and pencil for tracking speech/language therapy data.  I guess you could say I'm old-fashioned. I've tried some of the new tracking apps on the iPad, but I just can't get into them. I use a comprehensive data collection sheet that is kept in a separate file folder for each student.   The speech and/or language goals are listed at the top of the sheet. I track  accurate (+) and inaccurate (-) responses and then calculate the percent correct on this sheet.   Next, I move the articulation percentages to an easy-to-read data collection sheet.  This sheet is arranged according to the hierarchy of traditional articulation therapy.  Once the student attains percentages above the criterion level for 3 sessions, he moves to the next level.  This system makes quarterly data collection a breeze!

Articulation Data Collection is linked here

Comprehensive Data Collection is linked here

When there are 3+ students in a group, and multiple tracking sheets for each student, it can easily get cluttered.  I keep my clipboard glued to my hand to help keep things orderly.  I jazzed up my old clipboard with some scrap book paper and mod podge.  Very easy, very cheap, and very cute.

Talk it up!

Ashley