My accomplishments.

I really enjoy reading personal stories more than all the technical information.  So I am going to try to make things less technical and more personal. If you have any personal stories to share, I would love to hear them!

I am a mother of four. I am over 30. I am trying to get my bachelors degree.  When I hit the age of 30, I felt like I did not have much to show as accomplishments.  In talking with a new friend this weekend, I have four great accomplishments.  Now, I do not take full credit for how they have turned out.  Someone once told me that if you take credit for your children's good deeds then you have to take credit for their bad as well. But, my kids are much better than I could have "made" them.  I love these four with all my heart and it is amazing how my heart swells with pride when I hear good things about them from other people.  I have always expected to be a stay at home mom.  As my youngest enters first grade this year and I see that I will have six hours in the day where no kids are home, I feel a great desire to be out and helping others.  There may be other mothers who have not had the opportunity I have to be home with their kids. There may be kids that go home to an empty home because mom/dad are at work. I realize that not everyone's situation is ideal, but I hope to be around to help facilitate their parenting.  As an educational professional, I cannot replace parenting, but I hope to help.

Strategies to use for providing feedback and scaffolding

Strategies to use for providing feedback and scaffolding. (Emerging Literacy)

For all these, the story of The Three Little Pigs is referenced. These can all be used Pre reading, during reading and post reading.

This is a handout from one of my classes, COMD5200 at USU with the professor, Karen Filimoehala.

IPA Alphabet

In talking with my sister the other day, I decided that I need to talk about the IPA alphabet.  IPA stands for International Phonetic Alphabet. IPA “is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language. The IPA is used by foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech pathologists and therapists, singers, actors, lexicographers, artificial language enthusiasts (conlangers), and translators.” (Wikipedia)

IPA symbols have two basic types, letters and diacritics (like accents and a few more).  As of 2008, there are 107 letters, 52 diacritics, and four prosodic (rhythm, stress or intonation) marks in the IPA.

Here is a chart of the IPA:

“The general principle of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound (speech segment). This means that it does not use combinations of letters to represent single sounds, the way English does with ‹sh› and ‹ng›, or single letters to represent multiple sounds the way ‹x› represents /ks/ or /ɡz/ in English. There are no letters that have context-dependent sound values, as ‹c› does in English and other European languages.” (Wikipedia) 

An example of this is: aj wɛnt tu ðə stɔr. (I went to the store.)  The fun thing is when you get different accents!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

Resources

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/81615570/77-Web-Resources-for-Teachers-to-Try-This-Summer
I am out of town, so cannot post a full post today, but a friend sent me this link and I thought it was a good idea, so here it is for you!!!!

Oral Peripheral Exam

My latest assignment at school is to perform an Oral Peripheral Exam on at least 15 people.  Any volunteers?

An oral periph. exam consists of more than just looking in someone's mouth. It is "evaluating their face, tongue, jaw, teeth, hard palate, soft palate, diadochokinectic rates, and pharynx.

For the tongue, you will be noting any structural abnormalities as well as range of motion (ROM).
For the jaw, you will be noting the occlusion at the level of the first premolar, as well as the bite - normal,  overjet, underbite, crossbite, etc.
For the teeth, please note number and condition (presence of dental caries (cavities)).
For the hard palate, please note any abnormalities in height/width.
For the soft palate, note the symmetry and movement of the velum.
For diadochokinectic rates (DDK's) administer the following: /pə/, /tə/, /kə/, /pətə/, and /pətəkə/. Listen for problems with rate and/or rhythm.
For the pharynx, note movement of the faucial pillars and the presence/absence of tonsils."
(This is quoted from my professor on my assignment.)

For a lip check, the examinee will be asked to round lips, draw corners back, close lips then puff cheeks and bite lower lip.
For the tongue, the examinee will need to stick their tongue out and put the tip up, tip down, tip right, tip left and then take the tip and draw back along hard palate.

Here is an example of DDK's:

Multiple Oppositions Approach (MOA)

This is a paper I have to hand in tomorrow. As you can see it is a group paper.

Multiple Oppositions Approach (MOA)

Presented by:  April Hoyt, James Larkin, Lauren Pagnard, Megan Quimby and Shanna Siporin

Introduction

MOA was created by Lynn A. Williams at East Tennessee State University.  Research suggests that it is an excellent way to help clients with multiple errors and should be used more frequently.  Lynn A. Williams states that as this becomes more commonplace, the way SLP’s diagnose will advance as well.  They will concentrate more on the system and its errors and less on each specific sound error.  As a group, we were only able to find one or two SLP’s who uses this approach.

What is it?

v      Alternative contrastive approach in phonological intervention for treatment of severe speech disorders in children

v      Premise is that the systemic level of phonological organization is essential in the description and intervention of disordered sound systems

v      Used to remediate troubles with homonyms and to contrast errors with multiple targets.

§         Example:  “……a child who collapses the voiceless obstruents /s, sh, k, ch / to [t] would pronounce the words sip, ship, Kip, and chip all as [tIp]” (Williams, 2000). 

v      MOA uses this collapse to introduce to the client that there are differences in words that they previously could not distinguish from.

Target Clients

v      Mainly used with children 3 & 6 years of age, but can be used with any population group

v      Children with a minimum of six sounds across three manner categories excluded from their phonetic inventories

v      Suitable for children who exhibit severe speech disorders

Process - “The most important part of the MOA is the initial assessment” (Williams, 2000). 

1.      Analyze the child’s errors to obtain a detailed understanding of how to proceed forward with treatment

§         Initial assessment of child’s speech takes two hours

§         MOA uses 200 pictures instead of 20-50

§         This allows the determination of rules and sounds that are part of the child’s language.

2.      Select treatment targets

§         Begin with knowledge of child’s unique error patterns (eg: /s, sh, k, ch / to [t]) and targets must be:

·         Maximally distinctive from the child’s error

·         Salient, therefore presumably more learnable

3.      Treatment should occur twice a week for 30 minutes/session

§         Error sound is presented by the first treatment card

§         Target sounds are represented by subsequent treatment cards

4.      Begin with imitative phase until 90% accuracy across two consecutive training sets are reached

5.      Progress to spontaneous phase

Outcomes

v      By helping them understand the extent of change necessary, they are able to use the correlation for all the sound errors to make connections about phonologic strategies and revise their current strategy. 

v      This is an excellent approach as it requires the clinician to individualize each case.  Each child has a different system and this approach creates a unique intervention.

Benefits

v      Though the average time under traditional approaches is between five and seven years, this approach took between one and two years before children were released.

v      After participating in the MOA treatment program, the average improved 85.1% however one child improved from 14% to 99% in 19 months of treatment.

Cycles Approach: A brief intro        

v      “The cycles approach was developed [by Hodson and Paden] for use with children with highly unintelligible speech.” (Shulman, B.B., & Capone, N.C. (2009)

v      The client is given quick exposure to the desired target and then given time to “internalize, sort, experiment with, and do self-rehearsal” (needs a citation?) as they would normally do within typical language learning. 

v      Introduces new targets before old ones are mastered.  .

v      Helps “synchronize” two of the methods of learning: kinesthetic and auditory; and to encourage the client to learn on his/her own. The client is expected to learn new rules for producing sounds as their current rules are not working. 

v      Hodson and Paden state that many preschoolers require less than a year of their intervention to become intelligible. 

v      Research suggests that this approach is more efficient than other approaches because it targets and fixes more speech sounds in less time.

Multiple Oppositions vs. Cycles Approach: A Comparison

                             MOA                                                       Cycles Approach           

Designed for: Children with severe-profound phonological impairment who substitute one sound for several phonemes	Designed For: primarily highly unintelligible children
Focuses on: system wide change, addressing the child’s error rule as a whole unit	Focuses on: Change through listening, gradual phonological change, child as actively involved in change
Process: Targets multiple substitutions at the same time-don’t need to do all-child should generalize, targets maximally opposing phonemes with the rule	Process: Targets addressed for a set amount of time (not accuracy, rules are placed in developmental order in a specific timeframe, when time is up the next rule is targeted, after all rules are targeted the cycle begins again with the first rule

References

            Berman, S., Garcia, D., & Bauman-Waengler, J. (2007, November). Cycles Approach and Integral Stimulation: Outcome Measures for Unintelligible Children.  Poster session presented to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Annual Convention.

            Hassink, J.M., & Wendt, O. (2008, June). A Critically Appraised Topic on the effectiveness of the Cycles approach for phonological disorders. International Child Phonology Conference, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

McElligott, Maureen. CCC-SLP. Hemet Unified School District. Idyllwild, California.

Shulman, B.B., & Capone, N.C. (2009). Language development: foundations, processes, and clinical applications. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.

Williams, A. L. (2000).  Multiple oppositions: Theoretical foundations for an alternative contrastive intervention approach.  American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 9, 282-288.

Why.

The main reason I am interested in being an SLP is because of my daughter.  She has not officially been diagnosed with anything.  When she was two, our pediatrician became concerned about her level of speaking.  I was not overly concerned because she is my third child and her older brothers loved her and would frequently speak for her.  I assumed that was her reason for delay. She never struggled with reception, only expression.  I thought I would humor the pediatrician by getting her evaluated for speech.  She was delayed and we received in home services.  My thoughts still were that she would catch up quickly and be just fine.  She turned three. At age three, if your child is still delayed, there are other options for treatment, including preschool.  We decided to send her to preschool.    

            (side story) When this daughter was about 1, I worked at this preschool as an aide, but only for a few months.  I didn’t know much about speech disorders, but I could play with little kids.  This entire preschool was dedicated to speech disorders.  They would enroll 2 students per session that were ‘model’ students so the other kids would know at what level they should be speaking.  One of the boys that I assumed was a model student was there for speech.  I was told that he used to be completely unintelligible and something clicked for him and he spoke SO perfectly.

            (Back to original story)  At age three my daughter was admitted to this preschool.  I always had it in the back of my mind that she would be like the boy above.  That one day it would just click and she would speak perfectly normal. It hasn’t happened.  She is now 8 and still in speech therapy. 

            Having her in speech has been wonderful.  I think having her in preschool and in therapy her whole life has been good for her.  She has been surrounded by others just like her.  She has NEVER suffered from low self-esteem.  It has never been something scary for her because it has always been part of her life.  We have moved a lot and we have had to fight for her to get therapy sometimes.  The school she is currently in, for example.  Her regular teacher said there was nothing wrong with her speech.  We went to the principle and requested she be tested.  (In one of our moves, her paperwork was lost and I didn’t have it to bring with us as her currently receiving therapy).  She was tested and now receives her therapy during the school year.  She has greatly improved over the years and is very intelligible. 

            She struggled with she/her up until last year, she struggles with plurals and past tense.  What I’m seeing with her now is struggling in reading and spelling.  She reads slowly, pausing after each word.  We read together as a family, every morning, and when I’m especially tired (yes, I am not a perfect mom) it is very frustrating.  I try, on those mornings, to just keep my mouth shut and let my husband help her.  She adds sounds, she leaves off endings.  In order for her to see the whole word, she has to read slow.  We are working on fluency with her.  What I truly worry about now, is her younger sister is almost caught up with her.  When she surpasses her, I worry about her self-esteem. She spells like a kindergartner (she will be entering 3^rd grade in the fall).

            This is why I want to be an SLP. I want to help those who don’t have a clue, just like I have no clue when it comes to my daughter.  I want to be there for someone who is struggling and I can say, ‘I know how you feel, I’ve been there.’ I want to see the child’s eyes light up as some little piece clicks for them. It may not be the whole of speech, but one tiny piece. This is why for me.

            Why do you do what you do?