Autism Awareness Month: Keynote and Displaying Visuals (and The Incredible 5-Point Scale)

I have always been a fan of using presentation tools like PowerPoint and Keynote in un-PowerPointy ways (i.e. no reading of bullet points). Presentation tools offer a flexible space to position and interact with text, images, and visual elements such as tables for a wide range of uses in therapy activities. Creating a weather journal, for example, is much easier in a presentation app because you can place the text and pictures (i.e. of the clouds) anyplace you want on the "slide"- thereby bypassing many formatting difficulties in the moment of working with the student. In our recent App-titude column, Nathan Curtis and I discussed how the desktop versions of Keynote or PowerPoint can be used similarly in telepractice activities to arrange and sequence personalized photos for targeting objectives such as verb and concept use, vocabulary and storytelling. You can add backgrounds, animation of slide elements, video and even audio to make activities even more engaging.

In another recent App-titude column, I discussed ways that apps can serve as visual tools to facilitate conversation and play, and tie in with approaches such as Social Thinking® and The Incredible 5-Point Scale. I had the pleasure of hearing Kari Dunn Buron speak last year, and she described how the 5-Point Scale was designed to tap into the "systematizing" strengths of students with social learning challenges, leading them to better perspective taking and empathizing (see the work of Simon Baron-Cohen). 5-Point Scales are an extremely helpful and versatile tool. They can be used in systematic, focused ways much like the implementation of an individualized social story for a student with more intense needs. For our students with more moderate or nuance-based challenges, instruction can include a repertoire of scales to be referenced in naturalistic activities.

Here's where I love the Keynote app for iPad ($9.99, free for any Apple ID linked to a device purchased after September 2013). A 5-Point Scale can be created simply within a Keynote Slide by using a table and colored fonts. Once the concept is established using a scale related to a target for your group, expand your students' thinking by creating other scales illustrating the range of social behaviors in other situations. The key idea is that the 5 represents extremely unexpected behavior or situations. Depending on the scale, the target can be a 1 (as in calmness) or a 3, as in moderation on a spectrum from too much to too little (as in talk time). Developing the language with your students helps them feel ownership for the scale and also gives you a good window into their thinking. The power of the tool is that it can spark discussion and gentle cueing, "I know this problem feels like a 4 to you. Remember what other kinds of problems we labeled a 4?"

Try developing your own scales in Keynote. Once created, to save the loading time (and potential of accidentally moving stuff around with your finger) tap the "share square" and "open in another app" as PDF, whereupon you can choose iBooks. Your scales will then be saved in the "PDF" section of the app for use in future sessions. 5-Point Scales are also excellent tools to extend into the classroom, as all children can benefit from social-cognitive strategies, and of course are great to send home. You can send your materials to anyone as PDF files from the Keynote app.

A file with a number of scales I have developed with students (silliness, a prank scale based on a recent discussion about April Fool's day and social judgment, one on the social thinking of Hide and Seek which was useful for an egg hunt and playing the game Snipe, and a few others) are available to be downloaded from Dropbox by clicking the image below. This is a PowerPoint file downloadable without a Dropbox account, so from your iPad you can tap Download, then Open In... and choose Keynote (once you have installed it) or use in PowerPoint or Keynote on a computer.

Click on the scale to download a template

Some resources to learn more about The Incredible 5-Point Scale are available at the website. Also check Pinterest for some innovative ideas about using 5-Point Scales. The Should I or Shouldn't I? games from Social Thinking are also good ways to start with Five Point Scales.

Creating Your Own Materials with PowerPoint or Keynote

This info and video appears as part of our Essential Tech Skills 4 SLPs site but I wanted to make sure you ran across it, so am posting it here too! Apologies for the length of the video, but it was tough to make that mini-lesson more mini. The skills demoed here can be used to make your own visuals such as the PowerPoint cue cards I posted about some time ago.


SLPs often have the need to create customized materials such as picture sets and graphic organizers.  This generally takes us into the realm of desktop publishing, which can seem complicated.  However, we find that it is easy to repurpose a presentation program such as PowerPoint or Apple's Keynote in order to create a worksheet or a visual for a student.  Why these programs as opposed to Microsoft Word? Well, Word tends to want everything to fit in a word processed format, as in a typed report.  It is difficult to move text and images around as you please. Not so with PowerPoint and Keynote.  You can insert text boxes, images (see Part 3 of the Essential Tech Skills 4 SLPs site) or even draw items quite easily, click and move them around, and save them to print out and share with students (and colleagues)!

Check out this video on how to "Repurpose" these presentation programs to make any kind of visual or worksheet you would like:

Announcing the Essential Tech For SLPs Website!

Today we are launching a new website: Essential Tech for SLPs! This site was conceived and created by my colleagues Laura Goehner, Amy O'Neill and me as a way to fill in some self-reported gaps in techKnowledgey by SLPs who would like to become more savvy.

The content of the site (which is a static but updatable resource, not a blog- therefore don't try to subscribe) is our best effort to identify some skills that will lead to other skills, and provide written steps or video tutorials to support clinician's understanding and confidence in technology use.  We are presenting the site and content from it at our seminar TODAY at ASHA Convention in San Diego, so we hope it will serve as a resource for further learning not only for attendees but for anyone else who would like some instruction in technology that is geared toward SLPs.  The site is broken into 7 sections:

1. The Internet- managing/updating browsers and curating the content you find through bookmarking.
2. Professional Development through Technology- Accessing PD opportunities online and developing a Personal Learning/Sharing Network (PLN).
3. Picture This: Accessing, Downloading and Using Images- Using the key skill of finding and saving images from the internet on your computer or iDevice.
4. Create Your Own Materials: Repurposing programs you have on your computer to create customized worksheets and visuals.
5. Administrative Fun: Calendar and scheduling tools, and Google Docs for Productivity.
6. Got Interactive Whiteboards: Resources to get you started in using interactive whiteboards in your pull-out groups or within the classroom setting.
7. Managing your iDevice: a TON of tips to help you understand your iDevice better.

This site will be updated periodically and will "live" in the right sidebar here at SpeechTechie for your further reference.  We hope it is helpful!

Groundhog Day!

Groundhog Day is rather strange, when you think of it.  Nevertheless, there's a lot of language involved: the who/what/where/when/why of it, concepts around weeks and seasons, conditional if/then regarding if the groundhog sees his shadow, groundhogs themselves and what category they belong to, comparing and contrasting with other animals and their psychic abilities, etc.

It's a good time to point out a resource like Pete's Powerpoint Station, which has a bunch of presentations you can download and review with students.  Powerpoint files like these combine text and images and are a nice way to review a topic with students and develop comprehension.

As with any topic related to geography, I was also able to able to find something in Google Earth you could use to discuss the holiday: a model of the stage where Punxatawney Phil will make his appearance.  Click this link and you can load the file into Google Earth (which you must have installed first).  Use the navigation controls to zoom in (and out, to give a context about where this event takes place) to see the 3D model.  It doesn't do anything, really, but is a cool visual anyway.

Here's hoping for fewer than six weeks of winter to go!

Using PowerPoint to create cue cards

Previously, I wrote about using PowerPoint as a simple design tool to create graphic organizers; it allows for much more flexible use of images, shapes and text than say, Word. Here is an example of how PowerPoint can be used to make cue cards to use in structured conversation in social skill work. These are based on several other concepts, namely Michelle Garcia Winner's discussion of questions as "wondering," comments as "add-a-thoughts," and pieces from Carol Gray's Comic Strip Conversations. The small cards can be handed out at the beginning of the activity; kids hand them back to you as they initiate a comment or question. Conversation really is kind of a game anyway, isn't it?

To view the cards below, click on the preview. Hover your mouse above the pages to get the print menu.

Open publication - Free publishing - More pragmatics

DIY Graphic Organizers with PowerPoint

Often times we require a graphic organizer to help our students with a particular task (comprehension, pre-writing, etc), and the perfect one just isn't in our library. Usually, actually. PowerPoint gives us the tools not only to create presentations, but also do some simple (or advanced) page designs to make customized graphic organizers. Just open a new presentation, orient your page (File>Page Setup) and go to work with the drawing toolbar (View>Toolbars>Drawing). The toolbar allows you to add all sorts of lines, boxes/shapes, text, arrows, and colors to create spaces for students to brainstorm or break down ideas. Your graphic organizer can then be printed or shared with the student on the computer. The possibilities are really limitless.

Here is an example of a set of graphic organizers I made with PowerPoint (click on Download). These are based on a presentation on language schema made by Sarah Ward, a Massachusetts-based expert in executive functioning. You should catch her at ASHA or elsewhere if you can- she is an excellent presenter.

Language Lens

• Graphic organizers provide a visual representation and break down information. Using a graphic organizer can be a goal in itself, or a strategy for comprehension, pre-writing, problem solving or tracking steps.