The Game of Life

It's really the mission statement of this blog-- often things that are not designed for language therapy can elicit some wonderful communication with your scaffolding.  Recently I used the iPhone app version of The Game of Life, currently $1.99 at the iTunes store, with a group of teens I see in a social communication group.  At first, I got some grumbling (shocker!) that we weren't using the board game version (that I didn't have), and got even more when I insisted that each turn-taker needed to report what happened on his turn.  This ultimately led to a lot more interaction- speaking, listening and nonverbal- between the players than if we had the board game, because really only one person at a time could see what was happening in the game.  After the initial resistance, the kids really enjoyed it and worked well together; I had been recently quite surprised to see how much difficulty this particular group had with the task of sharing/passing a laptop to complete a task together.

Language Lens

In addition to the communication targets listed above (sharing an object, taking turns, aspects of game play such as being a good sport, avoiding bragging), The Game of Life can also be used as a context for building schema about life events. Although kids may leave the game thinking it's appropriate to sue people quite often...

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

Say it with feeling...

Start With Speech (strange title) is a cute activity designed ostensibly for an interactive whiteboard, but which plays well in any browser. The activity allows you to construct a dialogue between two or more characters, selecting different ways of "saying" something through verbs and adverbs. Language Lens

• This activity targets feelings and expression in ways that would be helpful to students with social cognitive deficits--character facial expressions change as you select different verb and adverb groups.
• Apply topic restrictions (the activity is totally open-ended) to work on topic maintenance and relevance.
• A dialogue could be created using a book as a context (what characters would say in a certain situation) in order to touch on narrative skills.
• Try this with students who are beginning to incorporate dialogue in their writing and need practice with punctuation and using words other than "said."

Build your own Caterpillar!

Scholastic's Build your own Caterpillar activity is more than just a dress-the-animal for fun type of interactive.  You are asked to choose the caterpillar's color, spines, and "extras" for caterpillars in 3 different settings, and are provided guidance about your choices, as well as feedback on whether they are likely to result in the caterpillar's survival.  There is an (I'm sure) engaging gross-out factor as you get to add things like vomit to scare away prey.  Students can write a rationale for their choices and why they think their caterpillar would survive.

Language Lens

• This time of year, many classrooms are taking care of caterpillars who will soon become butterflies.  This site offers a great visual, interactive, and language-based experience related to what is going on in those classrooms.  
• The descriptive, categorical (e.g. locations), and cause-effect opportunities are great here.  If the activity is to be repeated, this would be a good context to use a graphic organizer as a tracking sheet with headings such as: Setting-Color-Spines-Extras-Results.

Happy Mother's Day!

Joshua Littman, a 12-year-old boy with Asperger's, recorded a Q&A with his mom as part of NPR's StoryCorps project. StoryCorps animated it, and the results follow.

Q&A from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Here's to all the moms who support and unconditionally love their children who have communication challenges.

Thanks to Neatorama for this link.

Doodle Scheduler

It's that time of year when SLPs in public schools everywhere are stuck in IEP meeting (scheduling) hell. One of my absolute least favorite things in life is attempting to synch people's schedules in order to schedule a meeting. In general, I hate calling people on the phone (hmmm, is that surprising for a techie?), and endless email volleys in which people often mistake by email 25 what someone said their availability was in email 3...maddening! Doodle scheduler offers a fresh, visual, streamlined approach to this horrible process. Once you have an account in Doodle, you set up a "poll" for your event with possible dates and times. You send the link to the meeting participants, and receive emails when they respond. All that is left to do is look at the overlapping times when everyone is available (hopefully) and send a confirmation email!

Doodle has a great tutorial on their site. This video is a bit hammy but nicely shows how to set up a scheduling poll and respond to one.

Using Kerpoof, Part 2

Cross-posting on Mindwing Concepts' blog today. Please click over to see my post that goes deeper into how to use Kerpoof to develop narrative skills using Story Grammar Marker. I made a little booklet using PowerPoint and publishing to issuu (a great site that makes your doucuments look like a glossy magazine) and it details a project I did with a 3rd grade classroom using these tools. Check it out!

You need to click through to the Mindwing Blog to see the booklet:

According to the FTC guidelines, I will disclose with each of these cross-posts (and in other references to Mindwing products) that I have a contractual relationship with Mindwing as a guest writer. In no other instances am I compensated to review or endorse products or technology resources (i.e. websites).

To appreciate Mom!

Quick and simple ways to create, publish and share on the web absolutely abound these days...and this means opportunity for our students to use language in a functional way and connect with an audience- even if it's just their moms.  Animoto is a great resource to make brief videos that combine music, images, text and animation.  They often offer "greeting cards" around specific holidays, including one for Mother's Day.  We used this tool in lieu of traditional snail-mail holiday cards this past year!

Click through to the link above and select make a 30-second greeting for free. You will need to register for a free account, but will then be able to make multiple greeting cards and share via email.

The Animoto tool is quite easy to use, and it prompts you to add imagery, select music, and finalize.

I would recommend keeping it really simple and using imagery from Animoto's collection, opting for music besides the recommended selection only if there is time, etc. If you don't have multiple laptops at your disposal, or are worried that you wouldn't be able to divide your attention across kids at multiple laptops, it would also be a good idea to do a group "To our Moms" card.  The product is so novel and cool, I doubt they would mind! Once the movie is complete, you will receive an email and can forward to the appropriate mom.

Language Lens

• You can use Animoto with any language target you choose- listing reasons to appreciate mom, using causals, adjectives to describe mom, feeling words, etc.  A student of mine today produced this example, after we discussed the word character, used a bank of character traits to make a list appropriate to describe his mom, chose pictures and associated them to the traits.  The whole thing took 20 min!
• Activities such as these are always good opportunities to develop perspective taking skills; what does Mom do that you should be thankful for?

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo!

Old El Paso's El Tacodor game is designed to bring families together around a table of tacos.  Looking, at the game tasks, however, it is also revealed to be a fun language-based game in which kids practice describing, observing, guessing, interacting, and storytelling.  This is a low-tech entry that really only requires you to print out the gameboards you would like to use (there are a bunch of "packs" in PDF format for you to choose from.  Whether you incorporate actual tacos--that's also your choice!

Using GarageBand to record your speech/language samples or narrative activities

Here is a screencast I created using Screencast-O-Matic, showing the steps to using GarageBand software to record and save audio for evaluation or therapy activities on a Mac. It's quite easy to use, just click and see! I will try to do another soon for Audacity, a similar program for PC.



Language Lens

• Kids love using programs such as GarageBand to record and listen to their voice, whether during an evaluation or activity such as narrative practice.
• Digitizing this process helps you organize and efficiently save and review your audio files (and not have to have a tape recorder handy to write your reports).