Traveling to ASHA (or otherwise traveling)? Check out these two tools...

For me, planning + situational information = self-regulation + productivity + life is good.

When planning travel, I always TripIt. As you make any reservations and receive your confirmation emails about them, once you have opened a free TripIt account, you can forward them to plans@tripit.com. What results is a sequenced itinerary with flights, hotels, rental cars and other pieces you may have arranged. Simply a lifesaver. TripIt also generally lets you check into flights from your itinerary. You can access it via web or available mobile apps.

Another indispensable tool is FlightAware. Use FlightAware (via the website, which works perfectly well on mobile, but apps are also available for free) to track not only the status of your flight, but if you are super anxious like me, also the status of the INCOMING PLANE (click on Where is my plane now?) Often this information is just not provided to you by airlines, so it is very reassuring. Or sometimes not.

Hope you have a great trip if you are going, and I'd love to see you at sessions 1048, 1338, and or 1836!

Considering your professional development schedule this year? Check out Sean's offerings for training sessions.

Providing Summer Services? Try the FREE Fireworks Lab app for the 4th!

Interactive apps have long been one of my favorite topics because they replicate world schema, and every schema has language that goes with it. As the 4th approaches (or other holidays in the future), you may have fireworks on your mind.

An Aside: before you get me in any way wrong, I think fireworks are dangerous and should only be operated (? Is that the word? Whatever.) by professionals. One of my toughest cases early in my career as an SLP was working with a patient who had facial burns because of a fireworks accident. So, yes, firmly I believe we should enjoy the town- and city-sponsored fireworks displays, and leave it at that. I live across from a busy city park and though I enjoy the evening of the Fourth, I stop enjoying it after midnight when fireworks are still going off there and I fear that our house will burn down. Like your parents said, nothing good happens after midnight.

BUT, apps give us a window to simulate removed events, so along with your messages about safety that are delivered diplomatically so that you don't get called by parents, you might be interested in Fireworks Lab. This free app allows students to organize and operate a fireworks display. The app is gloriously language-neutral, so students can be encouraged to label their choices in elaborated noun phrases (e.g. "green sparkly rocket") and then set them off.

A few supplemental ideas:
-The app is perfect for pairing with a written language or reading activity. Write or sequence cards with the different attributes of the fireworks and use these as a "plan" for the display.
-The app does not multitask, so if you leave it to play a music app, it starts you from scratch. But students could make a music selection via a phone or other device to sync with their display, giving you more vocabulary to work on as well as causal constructions about their music choices.
-Have students research fireworks displays in your town, or for older students, pair with the story of this famous fireworks fail for a narrative activity. The article is safe to use with kids and has some good figurative language too!

Have a happy (and SAFE) 4th of July--and to my Canadian friends, Happy Canada Day!

Video Tutorial: Using Keynote for 5-Point Scales

In my recent ASHA Leader column, Apps that Help Teach Social Perspective, I discussed The Incredible 5-Point Scale by Kari Dunn Buron and how easy it is to create these tools with apps such as Keynote. Here's a video tutorial on how to do that!

O*Net Online- Help Students to Look Forward

O*Net Online is a resource introduced to me by a vocational coach and I have found a number of uses of it since then. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, the site features career interest questionnaires and lists of skills, work activities, and equipment for different professions.

Skills needed for Video Game Designers:

The site is therefore a great tool for working with older students (MS, HS, young adult), for designing specific language activities that will facilitate buy-in, insight and development of their professional goals.

I recently shared with a colleague whose student was resisting "coming to speech" and she was able to discuss with him the communication skills needed to succeed in his desired occupation, which helped him build rationale around their work. She then included video clips from YouTube about the job, which provided further visual support and context to work on language. 

The site is accessible at the link above and works nicely on computers and mobile devices.

I will be presenting in the Washington, DC area in September for the Center for Communication and Learning, LLC- hope to see some of you there! Click here for details.

Travels, Design and Gestures

February has been busy.  I traveled to the Illinois Speech-Language Hearing Association convention in Chicago last week, which was a great experience (nice meeting Jenna Rayburn!), except for the fact that I got stuck there because of the blizzard in Boston.  The ISHA staff were extremely helpful; I found out that my flight was canceled about 45 min before my Saturday presentation, and got on the phone immediately to start the rebooking process. Well, 45 min later, the airline was still working on it, and I had to hand my phone over to the organizers to finish the call so I could do my talk! About 90 min after that, we had confirmed my only option- to fly directly to Dallas where I was scheduled to present at the Social Thinking Provider's Conference on Tuesday. This turn of events was a little crappy, but at least I got some good steaks in Chicago while I killed time, and it was also excellent to be at the STPC, where Sarah Ward, Maryellen Moreau and of course Michelle Garcia Winner also presented!

So, I need to give this blog some love after being tired and on the road....after I get back from a vacation in LA, where I am headed right now! The wonders of slow Internet in the air!

But to share an idea for today, I recently wrapped up a series of posts on Google-based apps for iOS. In addition to providing access on iOS devices to Google's terrific tools for Search, Calendar, Mail, Documents and Maps, this series was partially about app design.  Google is doing a really nice job at designing minimalist, clean-looking apps that function smartly with gestures- a sweep here does this, a pinch here does that. It's a contrast to the tack Apple has taken in recent years with their apps, a design practice known as skeuomorphism. There's a vocab word for you! Skeuomorphism is basically the translation of analog (real) objects into a digital interface. In Apple's iOS apps, this is seen in the Camera app's display of a shutter on screen when you snap a photo, the leather bindings and torn pages of Calendar, the gears that actually have a turning animation when you update your OS in Settings, iMovie's theater front interface, page-turning animations in iBooks, etc. There was a big shakeup at Apple in the fall that was partially about skeuomorphism, and some bigwigs got fired.

Skeuomorphism in the Contacts App

In my recent column for ASHA Leader about app trends, I didn't get into this topic and the trend of more gesture-based design in apps. I am not saying I am against skeuomorphism. It's comforting to have something digital look like something we already understand. Many speech and language apps use skeuomorphism, with apps that look like books or board games or something else. Skeuomorphism is also a way to ground an app in a context or theme, which is helpful for learners. Kids dig this too. However, we should be aware of, comfortable with, and perhaps appreciative of other kinds of design.

Let's consider it "gesture literacy." It's important for us to be able to figure out what to do when there isn't a big button that says "Tap Here," and it's arguably important for us to be teaching kids how to navigate these digital spaces. And, in the process of feature-matching, we can avoid using apps that involve a lot of gestures when working with students who have fine or more significant motor difficulties.

Let's look at a couple more examples of this trend towards minimalist design, both of which are currently iPhone-only but will run on your big screen, and also relate to skills and concepts that can be targeted in language therapy.



Clear ($1.99) is an acclaimed to-do list app. You could consider trying it out if you are consulting with students who could benefit from this kind of color-coded reminders app. It also would be a fun way to work on sequencing, planning of tasks, or even connecting to curriculum and literature (make a to-do list for your favorite character). In using this app you'd also be teaching your students about the different kinds of gestures that can be used to interact with technology.


Solar ($1.99), also a recipient of rave reviews, is a gesture-based weather app. I have written frequently about how weather as a curriculum topic has a ton of language underpinnings for us to target: categories, description, temporal concepts such as seasons. This app's gestures also let you interact with time- and location-based information.

Just food for thought! Gesture on!

Another Caveat

In the process of doing a little analytics of my own site, I stumbled across a small critique from academic circles. First of all, I have to say I am happy that anyone is talking about my site at all, especially within a college setting. The commenter said that she loved the way SpeechTechie makes people aware of what is "out there" and possible in technology integration. However, she also stated:

I think serious questions must be raised though about how to identify, assess, implement, and evaluate whether these technologies meet students' needs. The conversations about how to then examine the highlighted resources in light of important contextual factors at their placement are limited.

I think that what this commenter says is certainly true, and that my making this exact kind of disclaimer is long overdue. We are clinicians and professionals after all, and operate in an climate where Evidence Based Practice (EBP) is rightfully emphasized. That said, the purpose of this blog is not to zone in on EBP; the resources presented here simply provide a context in which it can occur. The assessment of whether the technological resources presented here meet your students' individual needs? I am going to leave that up to you!

Here's one point I think the commenter misses, which perhaps I have not made clear up to this time (but, to be honest, I think I have): much of what is presented here is reviews of tech activities that can be used as the centerpiece of a session, around which you can build all the language stimulation, scaffolding and assessment that you do so well, and it is really those procedures that should be evaluated. I am not going to be engaging in depth about examining a particular, focused interactive website and whether it really meets students' needs because the technology is not really the point. The activities are just a hook for our children, and it's what you do before, during and after their use (as well as the assessment that only you can do, since I don't know your students) that qualifies them as therapy (and EBP). I think to hold me responsible for extensively evaluating, say, the effect of the Simple Machines activity would be akin to insisting on the extensive evaluation of one storybook, board game, recipe or craft activity versus another. Of course these procedures should be assessed, but we perhaps don't need to do double-blind studies on them.

All that said, for an example of how many of the resources presented here could be "sandwiched" in EBP bread, check out the Writing Next meta-analysis. It's an interesting read and it discusses the efficacy of nine language-based strategies to develop written language (and with the oral connection to writing, we all can see the connection to our work). Specifically, for example, instruction around sentence combining could be a post-activity to presentation of a BrainPop movie- simply compose a series of simple sentences about the topic and get ready to have your kids combine 'em!

I truly don't mean for this to sound defensive- I've seen clinical blogs that provide disclaimers and have been thinking- it's time for mine!

A Caveat

As I ramble on and on here about technology resources that you can use in your therapy, I need to disclose that there is a price we pay for technology integration, especially and paradoxically when it is free. First of all, your therapy materials on your shelves are always there, reminding you that you can use them anytime. Games, books and toys are in that way easier to incorporate in your therapies. Something like Linguisystems' Category Card Games (one of my go-tos by the way) doesn't take much planning to utilize in those oh-yeah-I-have-to-see-him sessions, and you know it will benefit the student. The resources we discuss here take a lot more planning (What are the targets? What are the pre- and post- activities? How do I take data?) and organization to build into your sessions. This is one reason I am a strong advocate for using social bookmarking and resource organization tools such as diigo, which allow you to tag sites in multiple categories such as sentenceformulation, science, grade2, so you can find things later by looking for them in any of these categories. I say all of this just so you know that I don't think tech integration is always easy. We see the benefit, though, in our engagement of difficult-to-engage students, the multisensory nature of technology, and the easy access to curriculum-related interactives that would be difficult to create in other ways.

So now to the second part of my caveat. Sometimes these resources go away, or change in ways that make them less usable, or unusable. Maybe your computer will age so that you are one undoable update removed from being able to use a resource. Unless your office burns or floods, God forbid, the same is not going to happen to your board games. I say all this now because I occasionally find that some of my favorite sites return me a 404 Not Found error, and then of course there is delicious, of the uncertain future. You can't back up an interactive site you love, but you can back up your bookmarks, for example, and if you use a site that allows you to download or export your creations freely, well then you always should!

Just putting all that out there. Have you experienced any technological mourning recently? Let us know in the comments.

Dunkin Donuts (Part 1) and Dynamic Detours

Here in the Northeast, we do love us some Dunkin' Donuts. I am saying this post is Part 1 of 2 about some community trips I recently made with some social skills groups to Dunkin's, but that's a little deceptive because I have written about Dunkin' Donuts before. Let's call it DD for the rest of the post so I don't have to keep typing that, and this post is not really about that wonderful pink and orange place anyway.

In our semesters at my private practice, we try as much as possible to schedule a few community trips with our clients, young or old, for a few reasons: 1) they are fun, 2) they allow skills to be transferred to another setting and 3) they provide a lot of teachable moments about social behaviors in the setting itself. Unfortunately we are located in an industrialish block, which limits choices, but there is a Star Market, Brugger's Bagel's, Dunkin's, and an ice cream and sub shop all within walking distance (walking and talking is a whole different story than sitting around a table, no?). So mid-December found my groups and I trekking to the little Dunkin' Donuts- more on the whole agenda of each session tomorrow, but suffice it to say it involves walking, ordering, eating, talking, a game on iPad (for backup) and walking back.

With one particular group of three 2nd-3rd graders, after coaching them through their order and getting them settled, I casually picked up one of the free DD calendars on the counter. We always have one of these at home as the coupons can be handy. Instead of just being something I carried home for that reason only, to my surprise the calendar turned out to be a great context for a 15-minute group activity. One of the kids said, "What's that?" and we started all looking through the calendar together. Now I have to say that 2011's more thematic and visual calendar provided a much better language stimulus than last year's, where every page was just hash browns or something. Here's some of the things we talked about as a group while looking through the calendar:

• Our winter break and when groups would start again (the passage of time is never easy for these kids)!
• The seasons, what months they encompass and when each officially starts.
• The graphics accompanying each month and why they might have been chosen (association/schema/background knowledge).

Why are there weights on this page? What are adults thinking and planning in January?

• When everyone's birthday falls.
• Holidays and School vacation times and what each person pictured themselves doing at those times.
• How to look at the calendar together: Please wait until people are done talking about the month before turning the page- you'll know that the topic of that month is done when there's a pause (and what exactly is a pause).
• Why DD might insert some "fake" holidays in there like National Donut Day- What's DD's plan?
• Which coupons the kids were interested in and which their parents would like better (perspective-taking).
• The plays on words and figurative language in the calendar (In February: Donut-cha know you're my one and only? In June: Splash into Summer!)

I was pleasantly amazed that one of the kiddos knew that the birds' conversation had to do with Twitter!

At the end of the session, the kids each picked up a calendar and delivered it to their parents, showing that they were "thinking about" them! It was a great ending to our community trip.

I share all of this not because a DD calendar is all that important in the scheme of things, but because it advances one of my main points of this blog. That point is that oftentimes, materials not designed specifically for speech and language can provide the best contextual, engaging, and goal-related activities for our kids. Language is EVERYWHERE, and we can use so many contexts to apply the strategies and skills we teach. Another point is that we should always be flexible in the way our sessions run, especially in these naturalistic social groups. Sometimes, following the kids' interests and allowing a Dynamic Detour, like the one that this session took, can make things turn out so much better than your original plan!

What are your favorite community trips? What surprising Dynamic Detours have you enjoyed in your therapy?

On Saturday: how we prepped for our community sessions using technology.

Disclosure: The author was NOT compensated by Dunkin' Donuts for the content of this post. Sadly.

Bookmahk Smaht!

A pause to touch on productivity and planning. I have gained soooo much from transitioning to social bookmarking tools, as opposed to adding bookmarks within your browser. Social bookmarking, most notably through Diigo or Delicious, allows you to do the following:

• Use a toolbar "bookmarklet" to seamlessly add and annotate a link, then return to the site of interest.
• "Tag" sites with multiple category names (e.g. "interactive," "science," "textstructure," "grade4"), rather than the single category folder you can set up on your browser.
• View your bookmarks in your web-based account from any browser or computer.
• Find more sites by searching within your network or by tag (e.g. look for sites tagged by users as "interactive" and "plants" to find a site for 2nd graders studying plants)

So try one of these social bookmarking sites and embrace your organized and categorical self, as all SLPs should. Don't fear the "social" aspect, it's not going to steal your time away. It's simply some limited networking that benefits you by viewing what others are bookmarking. Social bookmarking could be considered a consultation activity; you can identify and share sites with teachers or TAs that would be beneficial for your students to review outside of your sessions.

Here are two demos of the most popular bookmarking sites. I started with delicious, so there I stay, primarily. Diigo has some more functionality in allowing you to highlight and annotate sites, receive email blasts if you belong to an interest group, and easily set up lists for sharing.