Chicken Soup for the Soul Blog Hop!

I hope you have been filling up on sweet stories that are sure to make you laugh or cry.  Everyone needs a little inspirational posts once in a while, especially in our field.  I'm so thankful for all these amazing bloggers that are willing to give you a peek into their wonderful terrible speechie experiences.

Here's another story that I'm hoping warms your heart a little.

A few years ago, our growing school split and a new school was opened.  I was placed at the new school.  It was my first time to be full time at one place, and I was a little nervous.  Being itinerant has a way of letting you fly under the radar a little...maybe get away with not taking many of the tough cases or not having much focus on you.  I was about to get a lot more students with complicated situations and difficulties.

One of the students I inherited was a sweet, beautiful little boy that we'll call JJ.  He was autistic and nonverbal at six years old.  He loved swings and electronics and laughing at everything.  JJ's teachers and parents really wanted him to speak.  I just wanted him to communicate...to be motivated to communicate.  

At first I tried everything I could to get him to produce words.  I tried ABA techniques, whole language techniques, building his receptive language, and everything else I researched.  It wasn't happening.  He didn't want it.  JJ just wanted to stare at youtube videos and google images.  Yes, this kid was a computer genius.  That's when I decided to use his computer skills to my advantage.  

Scratch all the effort of getting him to speak.  I wanted to see if I could motivate him to communicate at all.  While watching him on the computer, I discovered that JJ could recognize words.  I began to put words of his favorite cartoons and videos on strips of paper for him to request what he wanted to watch.  He did great with it.  He'd even grab the word and take my hand and put it on the keyboard.  I always pushed for him to type the words himself, though he'd get frustrated at times.  

We kept at it.  He started to match words to pictures and built his vocabulary.  He would even write words or finish a written sentence on a dry-erase board.    

I really feel like this opened the door to communication for him.  Eventually, his parents and teachers got on board with alternative communication techniques, and he now does amazing things on his iPad.  He still has a ways to go, but he continues to learn and grow every day.  I'm so proud of him.

This experience really taught me that sometimes you have to think outside the box.  Think about what interests the child and go from there.  Also, it's ok to give things a try if what you're doing isn't working.  It might even give you great data to show parents on what their child is able to do.  

I love sharing happy stories!  Keep pushing through the blog hop and enjoy.  At the end of the hop, you'll have the chance to win some fabulous prizes!  Check out what we've got for you!

In order to enter, you'll have to add up all the numbers along the hop and put the total in the rafflecopter at the last stop.  Here's my number!

Head on over to the next blog by clicking the image below. 

If you need to start at the beginning, click on the following image to go back to the beginning.  Have fun and good luck!

An InLinkz Link-up

A Peek at My Speech Room!

I love decorating and making things pretty.  Everyone who knows me knows that I'm pretty much a professional shower-giver.  If you are getting married or having a baby, I'm your girl to give you a cutesie party.  :)

I try to put this to good use in my speech room too.  Every couple of years I like to change up my classroom theme.  This year I went with a chalkboard theme with aqua accents!  And I even made most of my decorations myself.

I have a super long bulletin board in the back of my room.  It's important to me to make my space functional, so I've got a calendar on one side and my speech rules on the other.  The pockets are where my students keep their speech dollars for following the rules.

I made the calendar out of a thick poster board and velcro.  I just switch out the month and rearrange the numbers when it's time to change it up.  All of the numbers and months I designed and printed then laminated with thick laminating paper.

School/therapy organization with sterilite drawers (^) and a "cup"cake tower!

These dots are those dry erase wall stickers.  I popped them on my kidney table.  Now everyone has their own "space" plus a place to do work with dry erase markers.

Here's my behavior clip chart!  All chalkboard themed and ready.  I number the circles on my table, so the kids know that their clip number correspond with where they sit.  

Book nook for my reading center!

These little chalkboard easels from Hobby Lobby gave the room such a fun finishing touch!

I hope some of these pics inspire you a little to cutesie up your speech room!  It's been so fun seeing some of your rooms on Facebook, so I just wanted to share mine as well.  :)

Encouraging Words for Discouraging Days

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.  You are serving the Lord Christ."  ~Col. 3:23-24

Life can be hard.  Work is hard.  This is time of year that things usually begin to snowball for us SLPs. Progress reports, evals, RtI, Medicaid, IEPs, tally sheets, planning, testing, evals, testing, evals, bleh.  You might start to feel edgy and stressed.  Your coworkers and your students are testing your patience.  Some days you might even go home to more craziness and drama.

Everyone seems to demand something from you: your time, your money, your talents, your signature.  The list. goes. on.

Well guess what, amiga?  You aren't alone.  The Lord sees you and your stress.  And I'm here to offer you a few words of encouragement (from a biblical perspective cuz that's how I roll)...in case you're one of the ones who might be feeling crazy.  Or if you aren't, you will at some point.  So just stick this in your back pocket for that day. ;)

Here are a few thoughts that are often encouraging to me when life gets stressful. . .

1.  Do your work as unto the Lord, not for men.  Meaning, I'm not going to get caught up in comparisons or feelings of inadequacy.  I'm going to do my job the best I can to serve Him...not to impress anyone else.

Source

2.  Even when you're overwhelmed, there is hope.  Hope in the One who is in control of all your circumstances.  He tells us that for those who Hope in Him their strength will be renewed!

Source

3.  Remember the big picture.  Sometimes I tend to look at my problems through a magnifying glass.  They always seem huge and I can't focus on anything else but that situation.  I need to remember to put down the magnifying glass and take a step back.  Look at the big picture and remember that God orders all of your steps and circumstances.

Source

4.  As the old saying goes, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  Or as the Bible says, "sufferings produce endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope."  We can take heart that even though life seems hard, the Lord is producing in us something far greater than we know.  And we are stronger because of it.

Source

If you need a few more verses and quotes, check out my Pinterest board.  There are also random funnies and other stuff on there, but don't mind those.  ;)

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts with you.  I hope you don't mind.  It's just been something on my heart lately.  I guess if even one person is encouraged from it, then it served its purpose.  Have a great day!

10 Speechie Resolutions

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Here marks the start of another page in the book called 2014.  Woop woop!  At the start of a new year, people traditionally set resolutions or goals of what they hope to accomplish.  Despite the fact that probably 99.8% of resolutions do not actually get achieved, here are a few more anyway - speech style!  :)

Resolved in 2014 to. . .

1.  To stay organized

Who doesn't want to be more organized?  Here are a few posts that can help you out in your resolve to keep it together:
-5 Organizing Essentials for your Speech Room
-Speech Therapy Organizing Planner
-Keeping Your Materials Organized (Super Power Speech)
-Katie's Speech Therapy Room Organization pinboard on pinterest is full of ideas

2.  To have better time management

Time management.  I'm always looking for new ideas and resources on how to get the most use of my time in therapy.  Effective planning usually equals good time management, for me at least.  Here are a couple of resources that might help:

-I'd like to do something like THIS in my sessions, but revamped for my speech room.  :)
-ASHA has an article with some scheduling and management tips that you can find HERE.
-Some things that I also find helpful include using my planners and syncing all my calendars to my various devices, that way I'm constantly up to date with where I'm supposed to be.

3.  To stay in touch with parents

Keeping the line of communication open with parents is important.  Stressing the importance of home practice and informing them of their child's progress can really help kids to improve more quickly.  Unfortunately, this has not been my year for answering my phone calls.  Maybe I'll just stick with letters like the ones in my Parent Letters in Spanish/English packet.

4.  To set more short term goals

Something else that I hope to do this year is to set more short term goals for both myself and my students.  I know I'll feel a lot more accomplished if I can actually see myself achieving some of the things I set out to do and crossing items off my to-do list.  :)

5.  To have more fun in therapy

If you are bored in your sessions, then you know your students are.  This year, I want to be sure and find ideas and activities to keep it upbeat and fun in my speech room.  It's sure to be more motivating for them.  A couple of places that I constantly go to for fun ideas are Erik X. Raj, Crazy Speech World, and of course Pinterest!  

6.  To inspire and motivate my students

Ok it's true.  We all struggle with being motivated at times.  But, when my kids are struggling with understanding a language concept or don't believe that they can do a task, I want them to see me and know that they can do anything.  I want to give them strategies and ideas, so that they feel confident and motivated to work hard.

7.  To be an essential resource to teachers and parents

I also would like to make myself more available to provide ideas and resources to teachers and parents. It's sometimes hard for teachers to understand your job or even realize how much you know.  Most of the time they probably don't even think about asking for your advice or help, just because they are running around like crazy trying to meet their own goals.  This blog post tells more detail how I feel about being there for teachers.  I hope to be able to provide lots of suggestions, ideas, and information to both parents and teachers this year.

8.  To speak up and not be afraid to share my ideas

Sometimes I hold back on making suggestions at meetings or even one-on-one.  I don't know why.  Maybe because I'm afraid they are going to think it won't work or that it's a dumb idea or something.  This year I'm going to make a point to at least throw ideas out there, even if others decide not to use them.

9.  To be an important contribution to the IEP team

Every member of the IEP team plays a relevant part of the decision making process.  I want to make sure I'm a valued member of that team with lots of resources and ideas to share.

10.  To go to work with a positive attitude every day!

Sometimes a positive attitude makes all the difference.  Looking at tasks and students through the correct lens can help put things in perspective and keep your motivation high.  :)

Well that about wraps it up!  I'd LOVE to know what resolutions you set for this year...even if it's not for just your speech room.


Graphics by: Glitter Meets Glue

Edublog Finalists!

Last week, something super cool happened.  The edublog nominations were short-listed and the finalists were announced.  And guess what?!  Lots of SLP blogs made the cut!  It's so exciting to know that our profession and blogs are recognized as playing an important part of the education community.  :)

Danielle over at Sublime Speech even nominated my blog for the Most Influential Blog Post of the Year category for this post!  So honored!  Check it out!

Here's the thing...the winners are chosen by majority vote.  Soooo, if you want to help support the speechies, please consider heading on over to the Edublog site and voting for your friends!  You can vote for however many people you'd like.

Here is a list of all the speechie finalists:

1.  Best Individual Blog
-PrAACtical AAC
-Chapel Hill Snippets
-If Only I Had Super Powers
-Speech Adventures
-Speech Peeps
-Playing With Words 365

2.  Best Group Blog
-Speechie Freebies!!  (I'm a collaborator on this one!)
-ASHAsphere

3.  Best New Blog
-Speechy Musings
-Rock Chalk Speech Talk
-SLPs For Change

4.  Best Resource Sharing Blog
-SpeechTechie
-Speechy Musings
-PrAACtical AAC

5.  Most Influential Blog Post of the Year
-Busy Bee Speech (ME!!)

6.  Lifetime Achievement
-Caroline Bowlin
-Crazy Speech World

7.  Best Teacher Blog
-SpeechTechie

8.  Best Twitter Hashtag
-#SLPeeps

9.  Best Use of Educational Wiki
-Communicate PA

10.  Best Mobile App for Education
-ATEval2Go

I'm so privileged to be a part of this list!  Thanks so much for voting!  Yay speechies!!

10 Speechie Things I'm Thankful For

Since this is the time of year that people think about what they're thankful for in life (not that you shouldn't think about it every other time of year), I thought I'd share a little about what I'm thankful for at work.

I thank the Lord so much for a great job that I love.  Not everyone gets one of those.  Even though it can be stressful at times, there are a few things out there that help make my job easier!  Here are some of those things:

1.  TPT

I am super thankful for a place to find so many ideas and products specific for my kiddos' needs.  My therapy is totally not the same without it.  :)

2.  Amazing SLP Bloggers

I love reading my SLP friends' blogs and getting new ideas and inspiration from them.  Plus, I know I can contact them anytime I have a question or need advice.  Most of us are happy to help anytime you need something.

3.  Fabulous co-workers

I'm beyond blessed with coworkers who are happy and funny and ready to help our sweet students.

4.  Portable Therapy Center

Do you have this?!  It's awesome!  This fun little gadget has a mirror, dry-erase board, velcro board, pouches, and pocket chart.  SO helpful!  I use it all the time.  You can find it on Super Duper HERE.

5.  Flavored tongue depressors

Haha.  I wouldn't be able to fix /r/ without tongue depressors, and my kids wouldn't put them in their mouths if they didn't taste like popsicles.  :)

6.  Board games

Love my game closet.  The kids love them, and it's nice to pull out a game every so often when you want to bump up the motivation in therapy.

7.  Books

Of course, I am so thankful for children's books that are colorful and appropriate for working on language skills.  I love that I can adapt them for what I need and use cute TPT companion packs to work on a variety of skills.  :)

8.  Hanging file folders

These are perfect for anything.  I organize my paperwork, worksheets, or whatever in these.  This one is from the Container Store and is collapsable and portable.  Cute right?  And functional.

9.  Stickers and candy

Sometimes you need to bribe children.  It's real life lol.  ;) Sometimes you have to use something they want to get them to try harder.  Whether it's stickers, candy, or tiny toys/games, there are days that you have to use anything and everything to get them to work!  I am thankful for these things.  ;)

10.  My IPad

Last but not least, I am super thankful for my IPad.  All of the awesome speech and language apps make my life SO much easier!

That about wraps it up!  What speechie things are you thankful for?  :)

Quote Posters Freebie!

My speech room is decorated similar to my blog design.  Black and white and yellow with polka dots and bumble bees.  You can check out THIS post to have a peek into how I decorated it last year.

This year I didn't want to change much.  I had to rearrange a little and add some things here and there, but the main decor is the same.  One thing that I just had to add this year was some pretty posters.  I put up some super cute ones from Crazy Speech World and Speech Room News, and they look fab!  Perfect with my color theme!

I wanted more so I made some fun and matching inspirational quote mini-posters to place on my cabinets.  Check them out!

I can't get enough chevron and polka dots!  And the yellow and black look so cute in my room!  I just printed them on cardstock, laminated them, and cut out the squares.  These would be so cute on a bulletin board, door, cabinets, or wall.

It's also nice to be able to refer to the quotes when a student is having a rough day or needs a pick-me-up.

And in case your room is not yellow and black like mine, I included blue and purple posters too!  See?

Cute right?  You can grab these posters at my TPT store for free!  Also if none of these colors work for you, my friend Natalie Snyders has some more quote posters available in her store for free as well!

Enjoy!

Dear Teacher...Love, Your SLP

Dear Teacher,

I need to tell you something.  Thank you.  Thank you for your diligence and hard work to prepare our children for the future.  Thank you for giving them the chance to succeed, for pushing them harder, and for showing them how to correct their mistakes.  

Thank you for your patience and love and support of our kids who have special needs and the ones who just have needs.  Thank you for the countless hours you spend prepping and planning.  Teachers like you amaze me every day.

But, teacher, I need to tell you something else.  I can help.  You aren't in this alone.  I am here to support you and my students.  Please let me.  I'm more than just someone to watch your class while you run to the restroom.  More than someone to bring you a drink or make a copy.  I am an SLP...your SLP.  Use me and ask me questions.  I really do have special training in all things speech and language.

I can probably tell you why your student doesn't seem to understand your directions, why he can't explain an answer, or why she's not comprehending what she's reading.  I can give the student strategies to help him compensate and show him things from a language-based perspective.  I can even give you, teacher, tips on how to make his environment more conducive to learning, tips on how to communicate with him more effectively, or even tips to keep him motivated.

I come in to your classroom to give support and services.  Please don't pretend I'm not there when I come in.  Please don't forget about me when you are planning your day.  Don't forget to include me in your collaborating.  I am thrilled to be asked my professional opinion.  I would love to help you strategize and come up with ways to solve problems.

Here's the thing, teacher.  I have a little problem.  Sometimes I'm afraid to speak up and tell you when a different way of teaching might be more effective for my student.  I'm afraid to ask you to not give so many directions to her all at once.  You see, I respect you.  I don't want to step on your toes and I don't want you to misunderstand my intentions.  So, can you just help me by asking my opinion once in a while?  Can we keep the lines of communication open between us?  Can we have the kind of professional relationship where we are open to changes and we work together to help our kids?  After all, we are both on the same team!  :)

So as we begin a new school year, I just want to say...you are awesome!  We've got this in the bag!  Here's to another fabulous year!

Love,
Your SLP :)

Let's Go to the Movies!

I can't believe this is my last week of summer!  Sigh...next Monday I'm back to the old grind.  I've got to get myself motivated lol.  I've been draaaggging.

Back in college, in order to get myself motivated to study, I'd watch certain movies.  Haha.  My top choices were usually (don't laugh) Legally Blonde or Akeelah and the Bee or sometimes The Pursuit of Happyness.  You may think I'm slightly crazy, but for some reason watching these often inspired me to hit the books!  :)

Fast forward to today and I'm hoping to apply the same logic to my unmotivated SLP self.  Here are a few of my favorite speechie inspirational movies!  Get your Netflix cues ready!

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon-affiliated links.  :)

In no particular order...

1.   The King's Speech (2010)

This one tells the story of King George VI and his struggle with stuttering as he inherits the throne.  He finds a speech therapist to help him improve his stuttering and give him the confidence to complete his duties as king.  Great film!

2.   The Miracle Worker (1962)

One of my faves!  It tells the classic true story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan and how a young girl who is deaf and blind learns to communicate.

3.   And Your Name is Jonah (1979)

In this movie a family learns that their son, who they originally thought had a mental disability, is actually deaf.  It shares a mother's struggles and journey in helping her son communicate.  I was amazed at how much our field has changed since this movie was made.  It was funny seeing all of the "old" equipment too.

4.   My Fair Lady (1964)

If you like old, slightly longish musicals, you'll love this one.  In My Fair Lady, a linguist helps a flower girl speak elegantly and become presentable in society.  It's all about accent reduction therapy lol.

5.   Temple Grandin (2010)

Love this movie!  Temple Grandin has autism, and this story of her life shows how she overcame so much and changed the way livestock is handled at slaughterhouses.  Very inspirational!  

I'm sure many of you have seen these!  It's just fun to watch them again and again to stay motivated.  What are some of your favorite speechie movies??  :)

Bloglovin and a Pretty New Design!

Are you on Bloglovin?  I'm really liking it to keep up with my blog reading, and the iPad app is very easy to use.  You can stay up to date with all of my posts and products by following me there.  Just click on the yellow (+) button at the top right corner of my page.

OR click the button below:

Speaking of buttons, I've got lots of pretty new buttons on my newly designed blog page!  Isn't it pretty?  I'm loving it so far!  A big thanks to Tessa from Tales From A Blogdesigner for helping me with a mini makeover!  :)

I also added some custom categories to my TPT store to make it easier to browse through products.  You can find them near the top of the left hand column of my store.

Just wanted to fill you in on the news!  Thanks so much for reading.  It means more than you know! :)