I was pleased (but tired!) to be part of ASHA Convention 2024 in Seattle, where I was invited to present a short course with Drs. Ellen Cohn, Erik Raj and Yao Du. The topic was Telepractice, Tele-Gaming, and Tele-Play: Low to High Technologies, and linked here is my portion of the talk with the slides if you have any interest! Many of the resources discussed can be used in-person as well.
During this time of year, we often do the obligatory lessons about gratitude that go well with the thanksgiving holiday. From a language perspective, practicing gratitude involves reflecting, listing and describing life events, so it is a therapeutically relevant context for sure. However, I always emphasize that there is science behind it for self-regulation, and we should try to practice it all year round! Here's a good video to detail those points.
Hi everyone! In July I was honored to present at the SLP Summit. I’ve expanded on that content and have a new 1.5 hr on-demand course available for you to earn more CEUs! We know one hour isn’t always enough so this is a chance to dive deeper into some fun, new content.
Check it out now at www.bethebrightest.com.
See what others said about my last course:
“Amazing & inspiring!! I came away with tons of ideas to use in therapy that my kids will love! Thank you!!”
“EXCELLENT COURSE! Jam packed! Thank you!!”
“Excellent presenter! Terrific demonstration of the different tech tools available for narration, not just providing links, but describing their use and demo'ing how to use them.”
“Loved all the practical ideas given. Even though I have used some of these tools, I still learned so many new things and features.”
And that’s not all! Need more CEUs? The course below is also now available for free!
Back in May, I had the wonderful fortune of recording with Chris Bugaj and Rachel Madel for their terrific podcast, Talking with Tech. They split the conversation over two episodes which came out in the past few weeks!
I have been lucky to know Chris and Rachel personally over the past years, seeing them IRL most recently at ASHA Convention in Washington, DC. It was great talking with them and the conversation flowed very freely. Rachel and Chris centered the convo around my Jeopardy! appearance but had many brilliant tie-ins to issues of accessibility and generally about language, so it will be fun to listen to even if you are tired of hearing about [that game show]. They also include their own segments with some great discussion of AAC topics, and we go into my FIVES criteria for evaluating technology resources as potential SLP tools as well. I hope you'll listen and keep listening to Rachel and Chris--also be sure to see them present if you ever get the chance!
The episodes are available below via Spotify but you can also listen wherever you like to hear podcasts (Apple Podcasts, etc)
When the iPad came out in 2010, I was skeptical. It seemed like a big iPhone and I wasn't sure it would take off. Showing how much I know, it soon became an educational sensation and took off, particularly in the field of speech-language pathology. Before you knew it, there was a surge of interest in my blog, SLP app lists, and professional development sessions on using it as an assessment and therapy tool. The App Store filled with apps designed for SLPs (still relevant also) and schools invested in carts and equipping all their staff with an iPad.
Apple still pumps out new iPads but there is much less talk about them. First of all Chromebooks made accessing the web and Google productivity apps cheap and easy for schools. Secondly, a pandemic pushed everyone into an environment where iPads were less useful (between skittishness about touching shared objects and confusion/limitations about using it in remote teaching), and I believe everyone also got a bit tired of technology, after it became non-optional for so long. In 2022, I think the iPad is still useful as a tool, however, and here are a few reasons why.
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1. Lower screens to the table. Raised screens laptop-style promotes faces-in-screens. It's much easier to have a conversation over an iPad or with the use of an Apple TV and reinforce those face to face interactions.
2. Pass-and-play. A form of play and conversation is adding thoughts to a context. This is supremely easy to do with an iPad (and hand sanitizer) and not so much with a laptop. Consider an activity like adding contextual items to a collage (or trimming around them to create a gestalt) with Pic Collage.
3. Price. The newest iPads are relatively inexpensive at $329. There are also still many free and low-cost apps available.
4. Little Hands. Let's face it- it's still not easy for K-3 students at least to log into a Chromebook and handle a mouse. Feeling successful with a tap is more engaging than frustrating clicks and drags.
5. Interactivity and No-BS access. There are few rivals on the web to assets such as Toca Boca and their younger kiddo company, Sago Mini, the apps of which bring visuals and interactivity to countless world contexts, therefore opening the door to speech and language targets. Similarly, many web resources charge subscription fees for full access. By and large when you download an app (avoiding the ones with many in-app purchases), it's yours without more haggling. The integration of camera/photos and drawing/text tools in apps like Book Creator, among other easier-to-use creation tools, is also less seamless on a laptop.
In conclusion, I currently favor having the option of both a full web browser (e.g. laptop) and the iPad at my disposal! If you are interested in hearing about some more examples, be sure to register for SLP Summit (free) where I am presenting alongside some amazing people next week!
If you have more reasons the iPad is still relevant to you (or not), please let us know in the comments!
It is an honor to participate as a presenter for the SLP Summit this summer! Save the dates and join me for my live course on July 25!
SLP Summit is a 4-day virtual event with 8 presentations from speakers who are in the trenches. We know you’re busy and need practical tips and strategies that you can implement the next day in therapy. Over the 4 days, we’ll be bringing you amazing SLPs who will be sharing their best tips and tricks covering highly requested topics!
My session description: Narrative language comprehension and expressive skills have implications for academic and social success, and are particularly relevant to school-based practice. This workshop will model the targeting of comprehension and expression of stories through easy-to-use and engaging interactive technology resources. Interactive activities and the use of creation tools incorporating images, book creation, and animation can be aligned with research-based methodologies such as story grammar teaching and use of text structures. This session will review a selection of tech resources which can complement instruction in aspects of social communication such as conversational storytelling.
The best part? SLP Summit is a free event! Register now so you don’t miss out on these .8 CEUs. Register at www.bethebrightest.com/conferences/slp-summit
*Courses are free but there is an administrative fee of $24.99 if you would like Bright Ideas Media to submit the courses to ASHA on your behalf.
Trust us, you don’t want to miss out! But, you don’t have to take our word for it:
“The amount of work you and your teams do behind the scenes is unbelievable. For free???? It’s a testimony to your spirit and love for the profession.” - Nina
“Another great summit! Thank you, ladies!” - Shelley
“The best one [Summit] yet” - Sharon
“So much thanks to all involved in this SLP Summit, it made me so proud of our profession!” - Jill
It seems appropriate after presenting at ASHA 2021 (glad we squeezed that in, huh?) about play, playful activities and games in language and social interventions that I get to tell you about a game of my own...
Hearing "A speech and language pathologist from Dorchester, Massachusetts, Sean Sweeney" (not by Johnny Gilbert, they edit him in, thanks again COVID) is truly an exciting and maybe terrifying intro. I hope that you will watch the show on Friday, January 7, 2022, and I will have more to say about it as we go! For now I have to keep quiet on any details including whom I played.
Have a great holiday and New Year!!
ASHA Convention was different, but it happened! Thanks to all the organizers for providing a safe and very educational event. I was honored to present on Thursday to a great in-person crowd.
The focus of the session was on "playful" activities for language and social interventions across the age levels.
A few resources I presented:
I'll be presenting in-person at the 2021 ASHA Convention in Washington, DC! I hope that if you are attending, you'll come by for my session on Thursday, November 18. This presentation is listed in the Telepractice category, and is partly informed by my experience earlier in the pandemic when that was the only option, but I assure you has many tips, tricks and resources applicable to in-person interventions. See you there!
I know I said I was done with anything touching on mental health, but can we really be when still navigating a pandemic? One of the best pieces of advice I picked up during this time is that purpose in our work, finding interesting lines of pursuit, and that means professional development specifically, can be helpful to avoid grinding.
To that end, a couple of resources I have found helpful:
-Both Bright IQ and SpeechTherapyPD.com are great mailing lists to be on in order to be informed of free PD opportunities. The SLP Summit is viewable as a replay until 8/15. I also have subscribed at different points to SpeechPathology.com and Medbridge (where, disclosure, I have created a few courses).
-Read up! Your ASHA Journals are still wide-ranging, and the Evidence Maps are growing. I also really enjoy the digestible content of The Informed SLP.
A tidbit: I was really happy to be accepted to present at ASHA Convention this year, if you can make it!
Topic Area: Telepractice (but will be very applicable to in-person also!)
Session Number: 1113
Title: Play on Words: Thoughtful Uses of "Game-Based" Apps and Resources in Language-Based Interventions
Session Format: 1 Hour In-Person
Day: Thursday, November 18, 2021
Time: 2:30 PM-3:30 PM
Abstract: Playful activities provide an avenue for targeting language skills, social cognition, and executive functioning across the grade levels. This session will demonstrate how technology resources across several platforms can be “gamed” via pre- and post-activities to engage clients in developing skills across the domains of listening, speaking and thinking. Apps, webtools, and Alexa skill games will be discussed along with task analyses and sample lessons developed in real-time telepractice during the COVID-19 emergency. Activities particularly target group social interaction, participation, planning, organization, time management, and self-monitoring. The session will also discuss research and resources in our literature supporting the use of play in interventions across the grade levels, and how technology can be used thoughtfully within these contexts.
I have mentioned before that having a hobby promotes your own growth mindset and just breeds happy! This summer I have been taking some drawing courses on Udemy (which has a huge variety of learning topics) and got an Apple Pencil! Inspired by my trip to Provincetown in July:
As we close out what was frankly an annus horribilis for everyone, naturally including anyone in education or health care, I'd like to do so as positively as possible and share some lessons learned. This might be two posts or one, or six or twelve, I am really not sure. It's a topic I thought of submitting for an ASHA presentation but really didn't have the energy (I submitted a different topic), so here goes.
The beginning of the pandemic was a fear-fueled spring into action: figuring out how to become an actual telepractioner instead of a tech-informed consultant, and then sharing that information in post after post and not a few presentations. Then we settled into the long day-to-day post-fall and that energy...lagged. The days got shorter and my SAD closed in, bringing with it a lot of irrational dread that was tinged with actual threat. My husband returned to teaching HS Math (mostly AP) in an impossibly hybrid fashion, working 12 hour days to figure this out for some engaged and many indifferent students, all of whom were probably doing their best to get through this. Meanwhile, I settled into continuing teletherapy, feeling trapped in our house and isolated, except for the blessed days I got to leave and go do some in-person work at schools. Nevertheless, we both carried UVC lamps to sanitize our computers and stripped our school clothes into a dedicated hamper in our back hallway.
Things got better. Vaccinations brought hope, mine coming undeservedly early in my case, due to my SLP license. I cheered on as my parents, my husband, family members, friend by friend (I kept track of who was on what shot mentally), then my students got their protection. Still, I languished through the late winter and spring and just now am REALLY able to see and enjoy the light, and I'm looking forward to the future.
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| Having started to experiment with coloring and drawing, I'm seeing the light- and am a work in progress. |
I didn't get COVID. My husband didn't get COVID. I think, anyway. I certainly got tested enough. The few people I know who did had mostly manageable cases. Lucky. I kept working, another blessing; I know it's a privilege to be able to work from home. Still. It sucked, didn't it?
I'm working to put the year behind me (self talk: let go and move on) but I know I can focus on the things I learned, and share them. So let's start with mental health. It's important, and something like this can break it a little, and you can piece it back together. Some tech tools that helped me:
1. Therapists need therapists. Get help if you need it. I had my own experience with telehealth re-upping with a therapist who had helped me in the past. Doxy.me works great! In all probability, help will be more available to all in the future given the doors opened and competencies developed during this tough time.
2. Tech-based fitness tracking facilitates exercise and mental health; the pulse goes up and so do the levels of good chemicals in your brain. Luckily, using exercise as a tool was always an inclination of mine. I enjoy it. Even without a gym to go to, I managed to keep that up, being creative about workouts and learning how to use exercise bands, which, now back to the gym regularly and comfortable maskless, I still use on some days as an alternative. I actually lost weight during COVID. I thank my Apple Watch, which I finally caved and ordered last August. The rings are a thing:
3. Tech-mediated mindfulness, breathing and coaching: Always a fan of tools like Calm, most recently I tried out Breethe, Aura and Breathwk. I ended up going with a yearly subscription to Aura because of the combination of high-quality meditations along with CBT and coaching tracks. The CBT pieces have even given me great ideas for lessons with my students, as these concepts relate so much to narrative language, social cognition and self-regulation.
ABCDE (Antecedent Event, Beliefs, Consequence, Dispute, Effect) pretty much mirrors story grammar models.
I also have found Sanvello useful- this app has instructional paths and meditation tracks among other features, and is available for free with some health insurance plans.
Further caving and getting AirPods has made me full-on Apple and has somehow made developing the habit of meditation more attractive. Having the voice in my head be music has also been a nice substitute at times. I should give a shout out to our network of Echo Dots about the house that has cut through the unsettling quiet, though I have listened to way too much SiriusXM The Blend (aka The Bland, aka Adele At All Times).
Breathwk is super cool and SLPs should definitely know about it, given our connection to respiration and a number of its uses (e.g. voice, fluency, self-regulation). The app presents different breathing techniques based in science, a training sequence, and all presented with great visuals and haptics (e.g. a vibration for inhalation). You can get a lot out of this app with its free options but I may spring for the annual as I am very curious to learn more.
The above have all been great tools in helping me step forward back into "normalcy," and I hope these tips help you and yours in some way!
Facebook's "Memories" feature is sometimes not so great during a pandemic. You look back with a bit of a pang, right? "I can't do that this year..." This is best channeled with some hope, particularly with good vaccine news this week, toward better days ahead. But still, seeing past ASHAs kind of hurt. I'd always be prepping to present and seeing friends and colleagues I'd only see there. One very packed room I presented to in 2013 did kind of make me go "Ew," given current contagion.
This year, I was invited by SIG 18 and was set to present "Play on Words: Thoughtful Uses of Game-Based Apps and Resources in Language-Based Interventions." That presentation doesn't really exist as of yet (maybe next year), but I thought it might be helpful to share my presentations, along with one on telepractice with Amy Reid and Nathan Curtis, from the last three years. Hopefully there might be some ideas in there that will help you in your work currently.
Food for thought: a lot of what I have presented in the past has revolved around iPad apps and these have been less relevant in the emergency-telepractice era. However, Apple has just released new Macs with their own M1 Silicon chip (as opposed to previous Intel-made chips) and THEY WILL RUN IPAD APPS NATIVELY. Kind of a game-changer for teletherapy, methinks. I will be getting one soon as my Mac is circa 2013, anyway.
